Lawren Harris - Vancouver Art Gallery

Transcription

Lawren Harris
Abstract No. 7, c.1939
oil on canvas
110.5 cm x 123.5 cm
Collection of the Vancouver Art
Gallery, Founders' Fund
VAG 50.5
75 Years of Collecting
Vancouver Art Gallery
1 / 34
Lawren Harris
Artist's Biography
Nationality: Canadian
Born: 1885-10-23, Brantford, Ontario
Died: 1970-01-29
Lawren Stewart Harris (1885-1970) is unique in the history of Canadian art.
One of the pivotal figures in the development of landscape painting in this
country and a founding member of the Group of Seven, Harris was also a
leading abstractionist who believed that colour and form were capable of
expressing spiritual truths.
Although he studied in Europe and was solidly based in its painting traditions,
Harris felt that the realities of the Canadian landscape required something
different—something less academic than the British style and more substantial
than that of the French impressionists. Around 1915, he and his colleagues
found resolve in the example of Scandinavian artists such as Gustav Fjestad,
who combined an awareness of issues of verisimilitude with a strong sense of
design.
Image source: Vancouver Art Gallery Library:
Canadian Artist Files
While the artists who became the Group of Seven are most renowned for their
depictions of the landscapes of rural Ontario, they were essentially city dwellers,
as is reflected in Harris' early images of Toronto. Red House, Yellow Sleigh, c.
1920, is a fine example of Harris' early treatment of colour and light, and the
almost visceral quality of his paint. However, Harris came to believe that the
landscape outside the city was more spiritually rewarding and began to work
farther afield. Beginning in 1918, he sponsored sketching trips for himself and
his colleagues, such as A.Y. Jackson, to the Algoma region of Ontario and, later,
to the northern shores of Lake Superior.
The Lake Superior landscape was admirably suited to Harris' purpose; although
foreboding physically, it was, by virtue of its isolation, a "pure" and "spiritual"
place. In representing it, Harris began to simplify his palette and forms to create
images which have an iconic quality. First Snow, North Shore of Lake Superior,
1923, is one of the finest of these works. A stark image, it is animated by an
exceptional, revelatory light which pours over the foreground and silhouettes the
background hills. The use of a reduced colour palette and the elimination of a
place of purchase for the viewer give the image an unworldly quality, a distance
and purity which Harris felt were lacking in the urban situation.
Harris' belief in the purity of the northern landscape derived from his lifelong
commitment to theosophy and from his readings of Blavatsky, Ouspensky and
others. Throughout the late 1920s, Harris' work has less and less direct relation
to the human world, culminating in austerely reductive landscapes of the Rocky
Mountains and the Arctic. The reductive nature of these works led inevitably to
abstraction.
In 1937, Harris moved from Toronto to the United States, becoming involved
with the Transcendentalist group in Taos, New Mexico. The abstract paintings
he executed there have a coolness and intelligence which is entirely divorced
from the romantic connotations of landscape. Their rigour and lucidity are
unique in Canadian painting, and had a profound influence on the practice of
abstraction in this country.
Harris moved to British Columbia in 1940 and became a leading figure in the
Vancouver arts community. He was a strong supporter of younger artists and of
the Vancouver Art Gallery, and was instrumental in the gallery's acquisition of its
2 / 34
Lawren Harris
important collection of works by Emily Carr. In his later years, Harris'
abstractions became more organic in form but continued to express his belief
that painting might provide a window to a spiritual realm.
Source: Thom, Ian. "Lawren Harris," Vancouver Art Gallery Collection.
Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery, 1994.
Artistic Context
Nationality: Canadian
Training: School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Slade School of Art,
London
Group: Group of Seven; Canadian Group of Painters; Ontario Society of Artists;
Vancouver Art Gallery council; 20th century
Peers: Tom Thomson; J.E.H. MacDonald; Arthur Lismer; Franklin Carmichael;
Frank Johnston; Frederick Varley; A.Y. Jackson
Provenance: purchased from the artist by the Founders in 1950
Subject: landscape; land based nationalism; theosophy; abstraction
Other Works in the Vancouver Art Gallery Collection
Lawren Harris
Mount Thule, Bylot Island
oil on canvas
Gift of the Vancouver Art Gallery Women's Auxiliary
VAG 49.6
Lawren Harris
Red House and Yellow Sleigh
oil on burlap
Vancouver Art Gallery, Founders' Fund
VAG 50.3
Lawren Harris
First Snow, North Shore of Lake Superior
oil on canvas
Vancouver Art Gallery, Founders' Fund
VAG 50.4
Lawren Harris
Island, MacCallum Lake
oil on burlap
Transfer from Women's Auxiliary Provincial School Loan Scheme
VAG 65.23
Lawren Harris
North Shore of Lake Superior
oil on wood panel
Transfer from Women's Auxiliary Provincial School Loan Scheme
VAG 65.33
3 / 34
Lawren Harris
Lawren Harris
Composition No. 1
oil on canvas
Gift of Mr. And Mrs. Sidney Zack and McLean Foundation Funds
VAG 65.35
Lawren Harris
Autumn: Design for a Panel
oil on paperboard
Gift of the Vancouver Art Gallery Women's Auxiliary
VAG 68.20
Lawren Harris
Geometrical Abstraction (Transatlantic)
oil on canvas
Gift of Dr. And Mrs. T. Ingledow, Vancouver
VAG 70.10
Lawren Harris
Untitled (Rocky Mountains), 1924
pencil on paper
Gift of Mrs. Margaret H. Knox
VAG 81.9
Lawren Harris
pencil on paper
VAG 81.10
Lawren Harris
pencil on paper
VAG 81.11
Lawren Harris
Untitled
pencil on paper
VAG 81.12
Lawren Harris
Untitled
pencil on paper
VAG 81.13
Lawren Harris
Untitled, 1935
pencil on paper
VAG 81.14
Lawren Harris
Untitled
pencil on paper
VAG 81.15
4 / 34
Lawren Harris
Lawren Harris
Untitled
pencil on paper
VAG 81.16
Lawren Harris
Untitled, 1938
pencil on paper
VAG 81.17
Lawren Harris
Untitled
pencil on paper
VAG 81.18
Lawren Harris
Untitled
pencil on paper
VAG 81.19
Lawren Harris
Study for Resolution
graphite on paper
Gift of Mrs. Peggy Knox
VAG 85.1
Lawren Harris
Untitled #765
graphite and charcoal on paper
VAG 85.2
Lawren Harris
Untitled #766
VAG 85.3
Lawren Harris
Study for Composition 10
graphite on paper
VAG 85.4
Lawren Harris
Untitled #768
VAG 85.5
Lawren Harris
Untitled #769
VAG 85.6
5 / 34
Lawren Harris
Lawren Harris
Untitled #770
VAG 85.8
Lawren Harris
Untitled #772
graphite on paper
VAG 85.9
Lawren Harris
Untitled #773
graphite on paper
VAG 85.10
Lawren Harris
Untitled # 774
VAG 85.11
Lawren Harris
Untitled #775
VAG 85.12
Lawren Harris
Untitled #776
graphite on paper
VAG 85.13
Lawren Harris
Untitled #777
VAG 85.14
Lawren Harris
Untitled #778
VAG 85.15
Lawren Harris
Study for Lyric Theme, 1954
VAG 85.16
Lawren Harris
Study for Lyric Theme, 1954
VAG 85.17
6 / 34
Lawren Harris
Lawren Harris
Untitled #783, 1951
VAG 85.18
Lawren Harris
Untitled (Landscape)
VAG 85.19
Lawren Harris
Untitled #785
VAG 85.20
Lawren Harris
Untitled #786
VAG 85.21
Lawren Harris
Untitled #787
VAG 88.22
Lawren Harris
Untitled
oil on hardboard
Vancouver Art Gallery Acquisition Fund
VAG 86.55
Lawren Harris
The Spirit of Remote Hills, 1957
oil on canvas
VAG 86.56
Lawren Harris
Mount Lefroy
pencil on wove paper
Gift of Gordon and Marion Smith
VAG 91.42
Lawren Harris
Eclipse of the Spirit
oil on canvas
VAG 92.17
Lawren Harris
Untitled (Armoire)
watercolour and pencil on paper
Gift of Mrs. James Knox
VAG 92.44.1
7 / 34
Lawren Harris
Lawren Harris
Untitled (Old Houses, Toronto)
pencil on wove paper
VAG 92.44.2
Lawren Harris
Rocky Mountains
ink on card
VAG 92.44.3
Lawren Harris
Sketch for Abstraction, 1938
oil and pencil on hardboard
Gift of Margaret Knox
VAG 94.50.1
Lawren Harris
Abstraction (L)
oil on canvas
VAG 94.50.2
Lawren Harris
Abstraction (R)
oil on canvas
VAG 94.50.3
Lawren Harris
Felling
oil on canvas
Purchased with the assistance of the Government of Canada through the
Cultural Property Review Board and the Vancouver Art Gallery Acquisition Fund
VAG 94.77.1
Lawren Harris
Trimming
oil on canvas
VAG 94.77.2
Lawren Harris
Skidding
oil on canvas
VAG 94.77.3
Lawren Harris
Loading
oil on canvas
VAG 94.77.4
Lawren Harris
Landing
oil on canvas
VAG 94.77.5
8 / 34
Lawren Harris
Lawren Harris
Tramping it in a Blizzard
oil on canvas
VAG 94.77.6
Lawren Harris
Tramping the Logging Roads from Camp to Camp
oil on canvas
VAG 94.77.7
Lawren Harris
Beaver Dam, Algoma
oil on canvas
Gift of the Estate of Patrica Eileen Becher
VAG 95.38
Lawren Harris
Atma Buddhi Manas
oil on canvas
VAG 95.40.1
Lawren Harris
Sketch Painted in Vancouver Art Gallery
oil on hardboard
Gift of Mrs. Margaret Knox
VAG 95.40.2
Lawren Harris
Mountain, Maligne Lake
oil on canvas
Gift of Dr. Abraham and Mrs. Naomi Greenberg
VAG 95.45.8
Lawren Harris
Lake Superior Sketch LXI, November, Lake Superior
oil on panel
Anonymous Gift
VAG 97.21
Lawren Harris
Earl's Court, Toronto Suburb II
oil on wood panel
VAG 97.36.1
Lawren Harris
Untitled (721)
graphite on paper
VAG 97.36.2
Lawren Harris
Untitled (598)
graphite on paper
VAG 97.36.3
9 / 34
Lawren Harris
Lawren Harris
Untitled (745)
graphite on paper
VAG 97.36.4
Lawren Harris
Untitled (716)
graphite on paper
VAG 97.36.5
Lawren Harris
Untitled (717)
graphite on paper
VAG 97.36.6
Lawren Harris
Untitled (725)
graphite on paper
VAG 97.36.7
Lawren Harris
Untitled (720)
graphite on paper
VAG 97.36.8
Lawren Harris
Untitled (715)
graphite on paper
VAG 97.36.9
Lawren Harris
Near Mitchell Lake, Batchawana, Algoma
oil on panel
Gift of John Becher and Julie Melnick
VAG 97.60
Lawren Harris
Rocky Mountain Sketchbook
pencil on paper
Gift of Margaret H. Knox
VAG 99.23
Lawren Harris
Mountain Sketch XXI (Moraine Lake)
oil on paperboard
Anonymous Gift
VAG 99.24.2
Lawren Harris
Mount Thule, Bylot Island
oil on paperboard
The Parnell Bequest
VAG 2000.39.2
10 / 34
Lawren Harris
Lawren Harris
Tamarack Swamp, Algoma
oil on canvas
Gift of Margaret Harris Knox
VAG 2001.27
Lawren Harris
Autumn Landscape
oil on composition board
Gift of Clemencia and Stewart Sheppard
VAG 2003.21
Bibliography
Lawren Harris: Paintings 1910-1948
Publication
1948
[transcription of excerpt]
Of the abstract paintings Lawren Harris himself makes the following statement
which should do much to refute the charges of insincerity and deliberate
unintelligibility which are commonly levelled at this type of painting:
"Abstract paintings are of two kinds.
"One kind is derived from the accumulated experience of nature over many
years. In these the endeavor is to embody and concentrate this accumulated
experience in organization of line, mass and colour in such a way that they
express the motivating spirit in nature. The purpose in this is different from
landscape painting. It has to do with movements, processes and cycles in
nature. One abstract painting of this kind thus may convey more than is possible
in a representational painting. The second kind of abstractions aim at
statements of ideas and intimations of a philosophic kind in plastic, aesthetic
and emotive terms. For myself every abstraction I paint has its source in an
idea. This idea, whatever it may be, cannot be put into words and at the
beginning of the painting is rarely clear. It becomes clear and objective
throughout the process or evolution of the painting. The result is an epitome of a
long subjective experience which cannot be explained. It can only be
experienced and then it should elucidate itself through the language or idiom of
the painting.
"My purpose in attempting to paint abstractions is that there is at once more
imaginative scope in this way of seeing and painting and a more exacting
discipline. Also, for whatever it may be worth, I have had ideas insistently
forming which could not be expressed in representational terms.
"The reason I do not use titles for abstract paintings is that it is impossible to get
their meaning into words. A title, therefore, is likely to interfere with the
onlooker's direct response."
78. ABSTRACT PAINTING
32 x 40.
Plate No. 15
15
ABSTRACT PAINTING. Cat. No. 73.
11 / 34
Lawren Harris
Souvenir Catalogue: Opening the New Vancouver Art Gallery, 1951.
Publication
1951-09-26
[transcription]
SOUTH GALLERY
CANADIAN PICTURES FROM OUR PERMANENT COLLECTION
Soon after its foundation, the Vancouver Art Gallery was presented by the
Founders with three Canadian paintings, by James W. Morrice, A. Y. Jackson,
and H. Mabel May respectively. These three pictures are hanging in this
exhibition and, as one may see, constituted an auspicious beginning for the
building of a Canadian collection.
The Morrice, "On the Beach, Dinard", is a small but fine example of this most
sensitive and lyrical of Canadian painters who died in 1924. The A. Y. Jackson,
"Road to St. Fidele" is typical of the full rhythmic style which distinguishes his
position in the Group of Seven, the first concerted movement in Canadian
painting history. A dramatic Arthur Lismer, "Pine Trees, Georgian Bay", a soberly
splendid J. E. H. MacDonald, "Church by the Sea", a discerning and painterly
portrait of H. Mortimer Lamb by F. H. Varley (all three the gift of Mr. Lamb), and
a brilliant later Jackson, further represent work by the original 'Seven'. Lawren
Harris, also a member of the Group, is represented in this selection by a very
recent work.
The influence of the Group was evidenced in the broad landscape style which
dominated Canadian painting for some years, a good example of which is here
shown in Mabel May's "Autumn in the Laurentians". (This spring the Gallery will
hold an exhibition of the work of Miss May who now lives in Vancouver). The
tradition of landscape, of course, has continued right up to the present in
varying personal interpretations: David Milne, best known for his delicate
imaginative watercolors, here shows a brilliantly executed oil; Edward Hughes, a
Victoria painter, hangs a landscape of arresting intentness; James MacDonald, a
young Vancouver painter, brings the landscape to the city in a richly painted
canvas.
Since the time of the Group of Seven, new elements, new trends, already
manifest elsewhere, have been finding their expression in our painting. Some of
them are reflected in this exhibition. There is the showy realism of W. A. Winter's
"Midnight at Charlie's"; the melancholy of Jack Nichols' turpentine wash painting
of children, the loneliness of Don Jarvis' "Old Man"; the element of expressionism
present in Fritz Brandtner's semi-abstract landscape. There is too, the concern
with form, to a greater or lesser degree stripped of its representational
references: as in Molly Bobak, for its sensuous life; as in B.C. Binning for its own
structural life; as in the Lawren Harris as a means to a metaphysical meaning.
This selection of painting well demonstrates that this Gallery may be proud of its
Canadian collection, and Canada of her painters.
DORIS SHADBOLT
Vancouver Art Gallery Docent
12 / 34
Lawren Harris
As We See It: An Exhibition of Canadian Art
Publication
1981
[transcription]
Lawren Harris
Throughout his career as an artist Lawren held fast to his dedication to the
native Canadian outlook, he first stated in the catalogue of the 1920 Group of
Seven exhibition—"The Group of Seven artists whose pictures are here exhibited
have for several years held a
like vision concerning art in Canada. They are all imbued with the idea that an
art must grow and flower in the land before the country will be a real home for
its people."
Lawren Harris was one of the major leaders of Canadian art for many decades.
His life spanned eighty-five years and in that time his philosophy constantly
moved him to explore new approaches towards his existence, and his art.
His was the main driving force that brought together and joined the varying
talents and temperaments which formed the Group of Seven. He was also the
founder of the now famous Canadian Group of Painters which succeeded the
Group of Seven in 1933.
Throughout a long lifetime of searching his work passed through five major
periods; ranging from the impressionistic Toronto "House" paintings of the early
1900's, through richly pigmented landscapes of Algoma, dramatically designed
compositions of the North Shore of Lake Superior, the blue and white mystical
compositions of the Arctic and Rockies to his last phase of total abstraction.
Harris's canvases from his voyage in 1930 to the Arctic on the government
supply ship "Beothic" were largely symbolic or complex pictorial designs.
He was influenced by the Russian Kandinsky's CONCERNING THE SPIRITUAL IN
ART and he subsequently incorporated symbolic color into facets of his work.
The yellows and blues held a mystical significance; yellow for intelligence and
blue for conveying spiritual illumination.
Vancouver: Art and Artists 1931-1983
Publication
1983
There had never been a common direction or style for art in the Vancouver
region. Although non-objective abstraction in painting and sculpture was the
avant-garde of the thirties, few artists practised it. More prevalent were
variations on Cubism which permitted a semi-abstract montage style. By the
early thirties artists were no longer as influenced by the Group of Seven and
were dealing with a new consciousness of space and modern composition.
However, their awareness was limited by lack of money for travel, forcing an overreliance on books, and on periodicals which — although usually a sensitive
indicator of new trends—in the thirties and forties were remarkably
unadventurous.
13 / 34
Lawren Harris
Exhibiting societies were the artists' mainstay and recognition. Leading artists
exhibited at the Seattle Northwest Annual Exhibition or sent works east to be
considered for national exhibitions.
In the local papers, current art issues were energetically debated. Although
anecdotal and larded with regional pride, art criticism (by Bernard McEvoy of the
Province, and Mildred Valley Thornton and Delisle Parker of the Sun) reflected
an intense feeling that art mattered, that it questioned the values of life and
could have some influence. From the thirties' theory and criticism of art one can
sense an overlapping of aesthetic and moral values. Although modernism was
discussed in the context of painting and sculpture, it was accepted only in the
traditional areas of architecture and design where the intent was to reflect
modernist conditions of contemporary life. Industrial design became the new
hope for the economy—the machine aesthetic—as new materials such as
chrome and plastics were introduced, and a new way of living was reflected in
advertising. World's Fairs in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco promoted a
concern for integrity in materials, in style of living, that was carried over into art
by rendering subject matter in as true-to-form a manner as possible.
As painting also became concerned with the integrity of the medium and the
composition of surface, emphasis shifted to the structure underlying the subject
in a move toward abstraction. Visually, the Cubists, German Expressionists,
French Impressionists, and Italian Futurists provided most of the basis for
development in the late thirties. Artists were discovering that the medium could
be substituted for the object or that artistic ends could be implicit in the means.
Whether an artist like Lawren Harris was aware of this in his desire to combine
nationalism (i.e. subject matter) with abstraction is debatable.
Lacking a tradition, and a means of viewing the original art, artists relied on
secondary sources. Seeing art in reproduction emphasized the formal, rather
than the painterly, quality of the work. Abstraction — which lends itself to these
formal qualities — could relay either the presence of nature or something
entirely from the imagination. To interpret this visual world, a supporting
scientific theory was readily available — since at the time science itself was
breaking down structures and systems for analysis.
Lawren Harris first exhibited his abstracts in Toronto, at the Canadian Group of
Painters' exhibitions of 1937 and 1939. He was familiar with the work of Wassily
Kandinsky and had adopted certain aspects of theosophy that applied to colour
symbolism. Late in 1937 Lawren and Bess Harris moved from Hanover, New
Hampshire to Santa Fe, New Mexico. There they joined the newly-organized
Transcendental Painting Group, which sought to carry painting beyond the
physical world to regions that were idealistic and spiritual.
With the war, Harris was unable to transfer funds to New Mexico and returned to
Canada, coming to Vancouver at the end of 1940. One of the first works he
began on his arrival was Composition #1 (c. 1940). Unlike other artists in
Vancouver at that time, he was well on his way to cosmic abstraction and the
ultimate oneness — "thought form." Avoiding all references to nature, he laid
geometric shapes one over another in limited space. He combined the triangle
with Vorticist light shafts to symbolize the theosophic concepts of an upward
rush of devotion and unison of the three principles of life—spirit, force, and
matter. In a 1948 statement on abstraction Harris clarified the difference he
perceived between abstract and non-objective art:
"One kind is derived from the accumulated experience of nature over many
years. In these the endeavor is to embody and concentrate this accumulated
experience in organization of line, mass and colour in such a way that they
express the motivating spirit in nature .... The second kind of abstractions aim at
statements of ideas and intimations of a philosophic kind in plastic, aesthetic
14 / 34
Lawren Harris
and emotive terms. For myself every abstraction I paint has its source in an
idea.""
Harris was to remain in Vancouver for the next thirty years — an era that saw
the development of art as an intuitive feeling for composition and colour.
Landscape painters such as Jock Macdonald were able to make the transition to
abstract art as their awareness of the range of art broadened.
The origins of art were also perceived to be broader. Northwest Coast Indian art,
Surrealism, children's art, and even "art of the insane" gained new acceptance
and appreciation for their innate truthfulness. Because of her interest in native
art Emily Carr had been described as a Surrealist. Part of this was the confusion
over the interest of the Surrealists themselves in Northwest Coast art. In 1939
Wolfgang Paalen, on his way from Paris to Mexico, detoured to the West Coast
of British Columbia to fulfill a long-time desire to study at the source of what
remained of native art.
Canadian Traditions
Publication
1985
[transcription]
CANADIAN TRADITIONS
From the Vancouver Art Gallery Collection
The Vancouver Art Gallery has extensive holdings of Canadian art in its
collection. This exhibition features a selection of those holdings to represent
certain aspects of the Canadian tradition.
The earliest works are portraits and landscapes by eastern Canadian painters
who worked in European traditions. Paul Peel was a student of the academic
Parisian artist, Jean-Leon Gérome. His highly polished surface and interest in
domestic allegory are seen in his Reading the Future, 1883. Twentieth century
figurative and portrait works include Frederick Varley's (1881-1969) Untitled
Figure Study, 1939 and Randolph Stanley Hewton's (1888-1960) art deco
portrait of Mrs Thomas Caverhill nee Robertson, 1925. Early landscapes include
Cornelius Krieghoff's (1815-1872) Indian Encampment which is typical of the
nineteenth century European idealization of Indian life. Krieghoff immigrated to
Canada as a relatively young man in his early thirties and lived here most of his
life. The influence of French Impressionism is seen in Quebec artist Marc Auréle
de Foy Suzor-Coté's (1869-1937) Winter Street Scene, 1918, while Homer
Watson's (1855-1936) The Load of Grass, c. 1898, harks back to the romantic
tradition with its noble treatment of the pastoral landscape. Earthy colours and
thick paint are used to express a rapport with rural nature.
But the strength of this gallery's Canadian collection is in the modern period.
Tom Thomson's (1887-1917) Nocturne, 1915, is a brilliant oil sketch which
creates a sensation of pure colour—an abstract sensation meant to correspond
with a feeling for landscape. Thomson's achievement, which was cut short by his
premature death in 1917 at the age of thirty, was a major inspiration for Lawren
Harris (1885-1970) and the Group of Seven.
Harris believed that the imagery of the north was a national spiritual heritage
and he endeavoured, in the 1920s, to render the bleak but sublime northern
terrain in terms of a metaphysical geometry. By 1940, he had moved on from
representational art to paint visionary abstract works which allied him to the
15 / 34
Lawren Harris
Transcendentalists of the United States. He was an influence on, and an early
supporter of, Emily Carr and spent the last 33 years of his life in Vancouver
where he made an enormous contribution to the introduction of modernist ideas
in this city. Eleven very fine Harris drawings, recently donated to the gallery by
his daughter, Mrs James H. Knox, will be exhibited for the first time.
Works by other members of the Group, including two recently acquired paintings
by A.Y. Jackson (1882-1974) are also included in the exhibition.
The gallery also owns a fine selection of the work of David Milne (1882-1953).
Milne pursued nature in a very Canadian way. Like Tom Thomson before him or
the painters of the Group of Seven, he spent months in isolated wilderness in
search of his motif. Milne disliked the idealism of the Group and forged a unique
and individual vision of nature. His delicate and sensual watercolours are among
the highlights of Canadian art history.
Works of social commentary are also displayed. They include Maxwell Bates'
(1906-1980) caustic canvas Beautiful B.C., 1966. Almost twenty years old, this
work still has the power to offend and amuse.
The experience of the Second World War is reflected in watercolours by Jack
Shadbolt, a painting by Mary Ritter Hamilton and prints by Frederick Taylor. Also
included are post-war works which demonstrate the strength of an expressionist
tradition based on nature in Canadian painting. Works by Alistair Bell (b. 1913)
and Jack Shabolt (b. 1909) depict nature not as ideal form but as growing and
decaying substance and as a metaphor of the human condition in the modern
world.
Scott Watson
Atma Buddhi Manas: The Later Work of Lawren S. Harris
Publication
1985
29
Abstract No.7 c.1939
Oil on canvas, 110.5 x 123.2 cm
Vancouver Art Gallery, Founder's Fund. 1950 (50.5)
PROVENANCE
The artist
LITERATURE
R.E. Watters. British Columbia: A Centennial Anthology. (Toronto: McClelland
and Stewart, 1958).
pp.532-34, repr.
EXHIBITIONS
Harris 1948, No. 74, as "Abstract Painting." Vancouver 1983. p.387, no NO.,
repr. p.25.
16 / 34
Lawren Harris
The work is inscribed on labels verso: Reserve for Miss Isabel McLaughlin/Also
Reserved for Hart House. The sketch underlying No.51 in this exhibition is
related.
The Informing Spirit
Publication
1994
TIME, PLACE, AND PEOPLE
MEGAN BICE
THE EARLY DECADES of the twentieth century were a nationalistic period in
Canada's history. Having confederated in 1867 and still adding provinces in the
first years of the 1900s, the young Dominion was increasingly disengaging
herself from the colonial attitude, increasingly aware of her differences as a
singular country. The belief in Canada, its growth and future, and the important
role of culture in that growth, was echoed by many artists of the time. In
particular, Ontario's Group of Seven, painters who consciously sought an
intrinsically Canadian style and subject matter, became a national voice in the
decade after World War I. As was stated in the 1920 catalogue of their first
exhibition, they "... held a like vision concerning Art in Canada. They are all
imbued with the idea that an Art must grow and flower in the land before the
country will be a real home for its people. The following year, they announced
that their pictures expressed "Canadian experience," and that "after the fashion
of pioneers we believe whole-heartedly in the land". From the land came the
experience and thence, the national identity.
Often regarded as Canada's most nationalistic artists, the Group of Seven's love
of country was not flag-waving patriotism. As had been the hope for so many
immigrants from the ancient civilizations of Europe and Asia, North America was
the "New World," the opportunity to begin again, to create a new history. The
nationalists' optimism was reinforced by various intellectual and philosophical
theories, particularly American transcendentalism and theosophy which saw the
North American continent as the potential home of an evolved civilization, a new
level of being and consciousness beyond that which had previously existed. For
many artists, their role was to be the messengers or communicators between
society and the realms of spiritual existence.
Like the United States, Canada is a geographically enormous and diversified
country. In the early years of this century, so close to pioneer ideals, there was
still the hope and promise of western settlement. Although the Pacific West
Coast of Canada presents a very different terrain than that of the American
Southwest, both landscapes have often had a profound and moving effect on
those who experience them. British Columbia's coastline is a countryside of
contrasts. More temperate in climate than other regions of Canada, forests are
lush and overgrown. Towering evergreens enclose dark, deep interiors beneath,
closing in the visitor, as do high mountain valleys cut off by ragged walls of rock.
From the inland spaces, the Rockies crowd to the shorelines, infiltrated by the
ocean in channels, straits and fjords. The sea water reflects the skies above,
and a humid, coastal atmosphere pervades the landscape. Mountains, sea, and
sky fill the view from every standpoint, receding in vistas of blue and hazy, ridged
silhouettes. Stretched along the edge of the Pacific range multitudes of islands,
from the large Vancouver and Queen Charlotte Islands to hundreds of small and
17 / 34
Lawren Harris
picturesque hill forms. Undeniably inspiring, the landscape has
always evoked a rightful pride in its residents. While New Mexico is renowned as
"the land of enchantment," British Columbia's motto aptly reads: "splendour
without diminishment."
Unlike the eastern regions of North America, the Southwest and the West Coast
retained physical architectural evidence of Native civilizations. British Columbian
history does not conjure up images of "the Wild West." There were no overt "wars
against the Indians," although, as elsewhere, the relationship was hardly idyllic.
Allotted reservations and dispossessed of their social, economic, and religious
structures, the people saw their established villages of wooden houses and
totem poles decline and the traditional ways disappear.
Although Toronto, home of the Group of Seven, and Montreal were seen as
Canada's cultural centres, artistic activity did "grow and flower" elsewhere. On
the West Coast, pioneering artists felt isolated from the mainstream of
intellectual discussion. Nevertheless, in the period under review, 1925 to 1945,
the two major cities of British Columbia, Victoria and particularly Vancouver,
developed increasingly active and complex art communities. Influenced by both
national and international ideas as well as their own native landscape, artists,
both resident and transient, developed a visual language in response to the
extraordinary physical world around them, often leading into an exploration of its
spiritual essence.
POETS, PHILOSOPHS AND PRIESTS
INFLUENCES OF THE TIME
The Yearbook of the Arts in Canada, 1928-1929 had considerable effect on
many Canadian artists. A collection of essays written by notables in their
respective fields, the Yearbook also reproduced recent writings and art, including
painting, sculpture, architecture, and photography. It was the book's intent to
provide "contributions that discuss what might be called the soil of our art, as
well as others which chronicle its blossoming." Editor and contributor Bertram
Brooker was a writer, lecturer and, in 1927, the first artist in Canada to exhibit
non-objective paintings—works that brought together many of the avant-garde,
philosophic and stylistic ideas of the time. The friend of many avant-garde
thinkers within the arts, Brooker's voice was both knowledgeable and influential.
Marius Barbeau, a nationally recognized Québécois anthropologist and
ethnographer fascinated by Northwest Coast Native culture, wrote one of the
articles. Victoria painter Emily Carr and Vancouver photographer John
Vanderpant, each had a work reproduced in the book.
One of the essays included in the Yearbook was that by Brooker's good friend,
Toronto painter Lawren Harris. In "Creative Art and Canada," Harris analysed the
formative influences for creativity. "Creative life," he wrote, "commences to stir
because of the stimulus of the total environment, physical, emotional, mental
and spiritual." It was "the result of the awakened sense of the relationship of
mankind, time and place." This was the "immediate." At the same time,
individuals seek spiritual growth "toward unity through infinite diversity" and
"toward understanding and love through infinite experience." This was the
"eternal." The creative faculty, itself universal and without Time, was
the means of communion between these two, the immediate and the eternal.
Genius manifests the momentary fusion of pure earth resonance and the light of
the spirit ....
The "immediate" was "Nationality," though Harris would have preferred a word
with fewer "combative and competitive implications." And Harris regretted that
"imitative life or second-hand living in European hand-medowns is all too
common amongst us ...."
18 / 34
Lawren Harris
A people ... must give life to its own particular attitude which depends upon the
interplay of its time, its place on earth and its capacity, before it can become
aware of the universal spirit that informs all great manifestations and all noble
living.
Harris' exploration of his "total environment" had begun many
years before. In retrospect, it seems inevitable that he became a leader and
driving force in the events leading up to the formation of the Group of Seven.
Including Harris and six other artists—J.E.H. MacDonald, A. Y. Jackson, Arthur
Lismer, Frederick Varley, Franklin Carmichael, and Frank Johnston—the Group
came together for an exhibition held in May 1920 at the Art Gallery of Toronto
(now Art Gallery of Ontario). Both praised and reviled for their beliefs and styles,
the painters organized eight exhibitions over a period of eleven years. Eventually,
although Johnston withdrew from the association, they added three other artists
to their number: A.J. Casson of Toronto; Edwin Holgate of Montreal; and Lionel
LeMoine FitzGerald of Winnipeg. What had united the original Group of Seven
was a shared fascination with the elemental forces of the Canadian wilderness
and weather. Singly or in company, they hiked, camped, and sketched Ontario's
hinterlands, eventually moving farther afield to virtually every region of the
country. Trained at a time when the tenets of Impressionism still held sway as
the fresh and new, the artists also felt that painting from nature provided the
inspiration for a distinctly Canadian art, a stylistic approach determined by the
terrain itself. With a near missionary zeal, they travelled, displayed their pictures
and proselytized their ideals. The painters felt themselves to be on a frontier,
both physical and spiritual.
The thought of today cannot be expressed by the language of yesterday . . . .
Artistic expression is a spirit, not a method, a pursuit, not a settled goal, an
instinct, not a body of rules. In the midst of discovery and progress, of vast
horizons and a beckoning future, Art must take to the road and risk all for the
glory of a great adventure.
Such a skeletal history explains some of the contemporary impact and the
enduring legend of the Group of Seven in Canada. Today, they are popularly
perceived as cultural revolutionaries; initially, in
the view of some critics, their ideas had seemed brash and unconventional.
Nonetheless, their inventions were founded upon existing traditions, accepted or
rejected, and upon ideas, some pervasive and some avant-garde, that intrigued
thinkers in both the New World and the Old.
The concept of wilderness—primeval land-forms and nature untouched by
humans—still plays a part in North America's identity. Certainly there remains
today an appreciation of the continent's gigantic dimensions and its relative
emptiness with vast tracts of remote lands. At the beginning of this century, with
even fewer people and slower, earthbound forms of transportation, the scale
and power must have seemed grander, the wilderness more inaccessible and
more unspoiled. Romanticism emphasized the confrontation of Man with the
sublime of Nature. For those, like the Group of Seven, who believed in the
validity of intuitive response, the wilderness and its forces, as well as the
lingering presence of pioneer civilization coupled with the steady advance of
industry, were facets of the North American character and consciousness.
Reciprocally influenced, the effect of the immediate environment—Harris'
"Nationality"—fused with North American spiritual awareness. Inevitably, writers
and artists felt a strong sense of communion with Nature. As writer F.B. Housser
declared in The Canadian Theosophist:
Earth, air, fire, and water enter into the personality of a man. The elemental life
19 / 34
Lawren Harris
of these is in him and their characters vary in different localities of the earth.
For Harris, Canadians were vital contributors, blessed in their proximity to the
"great North" and "its spiritual flow, its clarity, its replenishing power [which]
passes through us to the teeming people south of us . . . . This emphasis of the
north in the Canadian character that is born of the spirit of the north and reflects
it, has profoundly affected its art, and its art in turn, clarifies and enhances the
quality of Canadian consciousness." Housser agreed: "The Canadian North may
prove to be the inspiration of a new philosophic idealism in the years to come."
And, he added in reference to the West, "the Rocky Mountains, are sacred and
occult centres of the earth. The most ancient traditions of the North American
Indian speak of them."
Simply by virtue of being North Americans, the artists felt themselves to be on
the vanguard of a new age of discovery. In the search for an original
interpretation of the Canadian experience, it was necessary to break free from
European traditions. As Lawren Harris privately mused in a notebook in the years
before World War I:
Today Europe is conservative, America the potential heretic, that is, this is the
creative continent. Not at this moment perhaps but in its momentum toward
fufilment, its emerging vision of incalculable future possibilities . . . . For with the
exception of a few, creative pure human beings Europe lives in an
arteriosclerosis of orthodoxies, customs, fixed attitude of limitations in human
conduct, outlook and life.
Many years later, his friend Housser added:
Europe, to use a phrase of Spengler's, has "become." When a thing "becomes" it
grows hard-set, conventional and decadent. America is still "becoming." Our
outlook is of necessity creative. We have yet to live our life.
However, the avant-garde thought of Europe was not rejected entirely. "At the
same time," Harris had continued in his pre-War notebook, "Europe pours her
spiritual gifts into America." Her music, art, literature, and philosophy "give us a
feeling for spiritual activity and differing outlooks for the clarification of our own
direction."
Like Europe, in the decades around 1900, Canada and the United States were
alive with ideas and questioning. Darwinism, new economic orders, and
constructs of history such as Marxism, industrialization, urbanization, and
modern warfare coupled with nationalism—as experienced with horror in the
American Civil War and World War I—all upset existing ideas concerning the
state of man and the state of soul. Accepted social balances were thrown out of
alignment. Symbolism and mysticism were not merely reactions to the
disappearance of the old order; nor were they strictly defences against the
onslaught of materialism. Neither a nay-saying nor a retreat, the abstract, or
spiritual, offered an alternative, enriched form of progress.
Through publications such as Studio magazine, vanguard artistic and
philosophical ideas entered the Canadian psyche from European movements
such as Symbolism, Cubism, the Bauhaus and the modernist School of Paris.
Books like Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art reinforced ideas about the
transcendental powers of art. Through exhibitions in major American centres,
such as New York's famous Armory Show of 1913, and their catalogues,
Canadians kept abreast of current developments. In 1927, Lawren Harris and
others arranged with the American, Katherine Dreier, to bring the International
Exhibition of Modern Art to the Art Gallery of Toronto. The show included works
from Dreier's Société Anonyme by artists as revolutionary as Mondrian,
Kandinsky, and Duchamp. Some of those who were able to travel to New York
made a point of visiting Alfred Stieglitz's gallery with its talk and exhibitions of the
20 / 34
Lawren Harris
new, spiritual, and avant-garde, both European and American.
Equally, like the Stieglitz circle, Canadians were fascinated by the qualities
intrinsic to North American existence. For many, Walt Whitman represented a
manifestation of the new North American consciousness. In relation to man's
theosophical evolution toward a higher state of being, F. B. Housser discussed
the place of American civilization. For him "the American poet Walt Whitman.
was unquestionably one of the pioneers of the new race which is to come in
America." And, even more unequivocably ... "Whitman is America's first prophet."
With Whitman, the earlier transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry
David Thoreau exemplified radical, indigenously American thought, inspired by
the land itself.
Mystical thought and alternative religions, firmly embedded among European
intelligentsia, found intrigued followers in North America. For example, among
various members of the Group of Seven there was often more than a passing
interest in Christian Science, Theosophy and its offshoots such as
anthroposophy, Buddhism and other Eastern beliefs. Inherently, religion stresses
the reality of a spiritual existence, unseen and unknowable by mere physical and
sensuous means alone. Theosophists referred to "the astral plane," or manas
(mind) and atmas (soul); anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner to the continuing,
spiritual "I"; RD. Ouspensky to the "fourth dimension"; and Ontario's highly
respected psychiatrist, Dr Richard Maurice Bucke to "cosmic consciousness".
These levels of existence were not seen as an afterlife or heaven, but as realities
of this world, perceived by feelings and intuition. Theosophy drew heavily from
Eastern mysticism and, in rejecting Judeo-Christian religion as the only truth,
substituted a higher, unified truth that included all the various permutations of
religion. In his compelling book, Tertium Organum, P.D. Ouspensky discussed
the worldwide commonalities and scientific reality of mystical experience,
structured "according to the deductions of the MATHEMATICS OF THE INFINITE
and of HIGHER LOGIC."
While regarding themselves as extensions, or expansions, of conventional
science, these various forms of esoteric thought rejected the empirical approach
of science as the only means of proof, limited as it was to evidence received by
the five senses:
Exact science with its method has never penetrated and will never penetrate the
world which lies beyond the boundaries of the ordinary organic
experience...Matter is a kind of blindness.
Descriptive terminology is illuminating: Christian Science, scientific religion,
spiritual science. Auras, vibrations, and thoughtforms denoted the physical
evidence of spiritual presence. Indeed, in the introduction to their book
describing such phenomena, Annie Besant and C.W Leadbeater cited
photographic proof and scientific experiments. They claimed that the physicist
"finds himself bewildered by touches and gleams from another realm which
interpenetrates his own." In his search for a rational explanation, he "insensibly
slips over the boundary, and is, although he does not yet realize it, contacting
the astral plane."
Science was but one methodology of knowledge or truth which includes the
unseeable and intangible; economics and politics were categories of
brotherhood; political nationalism and "manifest destiny" were perverted forms of
national consciousness; individual organized religion offered only partial
manifestations of spiritual unity. None was rejected; all were basic elements of
the spiritual essence intrinsic to all earthly things. As it was clear in 1930 to F.B.
Housser, in the age of corporate mergers, public utilities, cooperative
manufacturing and socialism, and in the shrinking world of modern
transportation and communications which advanced world consciousness:
21 / 34
Lawren Harris
It must be clear to everyone... that a new era has been entered since 1914 ....
May not these material manifestations be the result of a dawning deeper
consciousness of spiritual unity in the race as a whole and when Humanity is
through playing with the new toys Science isforever creating and Big Business
becomes weary of super profits, may we not have faith that the creative powers
of the race will be applied to new and nobler achievements and that the natural
spiritual resources of the American continent will be developed as rapidly as its
material resources are today being exploited?
This is the Theosophic and Whitmanic message to America and the world. "When
the materials are all prepared and ready, the architects shall appear."
Housser's words link the creative energies of materialism and spiritual
regeneration. The reader senses frustration but responds to his passionate
optimism. There seemed little doubt that the "architects" had come of age.
Lawren Stewart Harris: A Painter's Progress
Publication
2000
Figure 42
Abstract No. 7, circa 1939
Oil on canvas, 43 ½ x 48 ½ inches (110.5 x 123.2 cm)
Founders Fund
Harris's works of the 1930s and 1940s, have always attracted me and, at the
same time, repelled me with their cold rigidity and order. Their coldness is not,
however, that of the North, of Lake Superior or the mountain peaks of the
Rockies. It is rather a machine-like cold of finished metal and plastic. On the
one hand, the cleanliness of this aesthetic appeals to our sense of design, and
we can understand the logic of the artist's trajectory, his need, having left
Canada and the stultifying environment of the Group and of Canadian
nationalism, to root himself in modern "international" theories of expression and
composition in order to find a way forward. But this use of theory to understand
and control nature, and thinking, as the Theosophists did of religion, almost
scientifically, seems, while consistent with its times, flawed, even arrogant.
Harris's "religion" always remained theoretical and intellectual. This is nowhere
more apparent than in his works painted in New Mexico, and those created in
Vancouver that were based on this period of "research."
Art and Harris and the Transcendental Painting Group did not provoke my several
trips to New Mexico. The atomic bomb did. I do not really know why the bomb
has so interested me. Perhaps it is because I believe, as many people do, that
its appearance marked a significant shift in humanity's relationship to nature and
to God, much like the shift during the Renaissance, when "man" was
repositioned, philosophically and scientifically, as the focal point (an idea so
elegantly illustrated by the theory of perspective). Physicist J. Robert
Oppenheimer called the initial test "Trinity" and quoted the Bhagavad-Gita
immediately following the test. His tendency to describe his scientific activity
within spiritual terms continues to resonate with me whenever I look at Harris's
New Mexico paintings, with their hovering triangles, precisely defined spheres,
vertical thrusts, and hints of cloud formations. While this may seem a bit of a
stretch, I think the place, what we might call a plane of understanding, of
knowing, for which Harris was searching through his theoretical abstractions,
22 / 34
Lawren Harris
was the same "place" for which Oppenheimer was looking through theoretical
physics. Both men were involved in an attempt to understand a "truth" beyond
the mere surface reality of the natural world. Both mixed science/theory and
spiritualism to achieve this aim. Oppenheimer, and his colleagues at Los Alamos
and in the Manhattan Project, clearly found this "truth." With Harris, there is no
such indisputable concrete evidence.
Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.—J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER
I can no longer look at Harris paintings such as Abstract Painting 95 or
Composition No. 1
[Figures 39, 43] without thinking of Trinity. In the former, the shape alone,
hovering in the sky over a landscape marked by a brightly illuminated
impression, seems to prefigure the mushroom cloud of the Trinity test. In the
latter the repeated triangle motif and the three floating spheres at the bottom
can read as atoms, suggesting a scientific diagram/spiritual map. My linkage of
Harris and Trinity should be seen not as an unfair imposition on the paintings,
but rather as an attempt to comprehend these works within the context of the
times in which they were created, extremely utopian times, when the idea that
one could fully comprehend, control, manipulate, and image the "truth" behind
nature, that one could reveal, comprehend, and duplicate the work of "God" was
prevalent in many disciplines.
In this light, it seems so fitting that in 1939, on the eve of the Second World
War, Harris was included in the exhibition American Art Today at the New York
World's Fair, a mammoth celebration of technological progress and human
superiority over nature. "Building the World of Tomorrow" constituted the fair's
official theme. The main attraction was Futurama, General Motors' threedimensional plan of a future elegantly designed and controlled by engineers and
planners. Harris was there, represented by Composition 10 [Figure 35], a
painting as clean and precise as the brightly lit World of Tomorrow. This is where
I want to return to Mount Analogue.
68
Further Reading
Adamson, Jeremy. Lawren S. Harris: Urban Scenes and Wilderness
Landscapes, 1906-1930. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1978.
Harris, Bess and R.G.P. Colgrove. Lawren Harris. Toronto: The Macmillan
Company of Canada, 1969.
Jackson, Christopher. North by West: the Arctic and Rocky Mountain Paintings
of Lawren Harris 1924-1931. Calgary: Glenbow Museum, 1991.
Murray, Joan. Lawren Harris: An Introduction to His Life and Art. Toronto: Firefly
Books Ltd., 2003.
Murray, Joan and Robert Fulford. The Beginnings of Vision: the Drawings of
Lawren S. Harris. Toronto: Douglas and MacIntyre, 1982.
23 / 34
Lawren Harris
Exhibition History
Exhibitions at the Vancouver Art Gallery
Lawren Harris Retrospective Exhibition of his Painting, 1910-1948. March 1,
1949 - March 20, 1949.
Opening the New Vancouver Art Gallery, 1951. September 26 - October 14,
1951.
Canadian Pictures, 1951. December 4, 1982 - March 20, 1983.
Vancouver: Art and Artists 1931-1983. October 15, 1983 - December 31,
1983.
Canadian Traditions. June 29, 1985 - October 6, 1985.
Atma Buddhi Manas: The Later Work of Lawren S. Harris. February 7, 1986 March 16, 1986.
Exploring the Collection: Lawren Harris. November 27, 1993 - May 15, 1994.
The Informing Spirit: The American Southwest and West Coast Canada, 19251945. January 15, 1994 - September 5, 1994.
From the Collection: Five Abstract Painters August 19, 1997 - July 6, 1998
75 Years of Collecting: British Masters, Group of Seven and Pop Icons. February
4, 2006 - May 14, 2006.
75 Years of Collecting: The Road to Utopia. September 23, 2006 - January 1,
2007.
Selected Exhibitions outside of the Vancouver Art Gallery
Kelowna Centennial Museum, Kelowna. As We See It: An Exhibition of Canadian
Art. 1981.
Edmonton Art Gallery, Edmonton. 75th Anniversary Exhibition: Lawren Harris.
September 10, 1999 - January 16, 2000.
The Americas Society, New York. Lawren Stewart Harris: A Painter's Progress.
September 5, 2000 - November 5, 2000.
24 / 34
Lawren Harris
Archival History
Note to File
Miscellaneous History
[transcription]
To File: VAG 50.5 (object no. 7) by Lawren Harris
There is a drawing related to this work entitled Toward Obstraction in the
Firestone collection in the City of Ottawa Arts Court.
Note to File
[transcription]
Lawren Harris
ABSTRACT NO. 7 c 1939
As a founding member of the Group of Seven and the Canadian Group of
Painters, Lawren Harris had a seminal influence on Canadian painting. Harris
moved to Vancouver in 1940 to spend the rest of his career here.
Harris' long painting career moved through a series of stylistic and theoretical
phases in his search for a national and a universal spirit underlying the abstract
forms of art. In 1937, he abandoned representational landscape to focus on the
exploration of non-objective composition in an which [in which an] arrangement
of specific colours and geometric forms carried symbolic meaning. While a
composition such as Abstract No. 7 grew out of his studies of glacial landscape
in the Canadian North, it does not depict a recognizable subject from the natural
world. Harris believed that certain colours and geometric shapes could, in
themselves, symbolize abstract concepts. Here he has combined them in
relationships based on mathematical proportions that he believed reflected
universal laws. The rising, transparent pyramids suggest the ascent of the
human spirit.
25 / 34
Lawren Harris
Correspondence
Acquisition Record
1949-04-23
[transcription]
April 23rd, 1949
Founders Trust Fund has ample funds available to cover this amount
[handwritten across the date]
Dear Mr. Farrell,
The Pu[r]chase and Acceptance Committee met during the course of the Lawren
Harris Retrospective with a view to selecting paintings for the Gallery's
permanent collection. At yesterday's Council Meeting they recommended that
the Gallery acquire the following pictures:
1. Red House and Yellow Sleigh
2. Lake Superior
3. Abstract #7
The price Mr. Harris has placed on the above 3 pictures is $1,500.0 and in the
event of their purchase he will hand over this money as part of his contribution
to the building extension.
As the Gallery has no funds available for this purchase I am directed by the
Council to request that the founders make the purchase from their fund.
Yours sincerely,
[J.A. MORRIS in ink]
Curator
The Pres. and I feel that these pictures would [form?] a very valuable addition to
the B.C. [?]. Before completing the purchase we would like to inform all the
founders of what [weproposed to do crossed out] proposed. [handwritten at
bottom of letter].
26 / 34
Lawren Harris
Correspondence
Acquisition Record
1949-04-29
[transcription]
BRITISH COLUMBIA ELECTRIC RAILWAY CO., LTD.
OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
HASTINGS AND CARRALL STREETS
VANCOUVER, B.C
A.E. Grauer
President
April 29th, 1949.
Mr. Gordon Farrell
Treasurer, Founder's Fund,
Vancouver Art Gallery,
1145 West Georgia Street,
Vancouver, B.C.
Dear Mr. Farrell:
I have your letter of April 27th and my Company agrees with the
recommendation that the Vancouver Art Gallery purchase three pictures of Mr.
Lawren Harris at a price of $1,500.00 for the three from the Founder's
Fund; these pictures to be for the Permanent Collection.
Yours sincerely
[signed A.E. Grauer]
Examination and Treatment Record
Conservation
1983-06-16
[transcription]
VANCOUVER
ART
GALLERY
1145 WEST GEORGIA VANCOUVER, B.C. CANADA V6E 3H2
5621
Tel. (604) 682-
EXAMINATION AND TREATMENT RECORD
OWNER: VAG
ADDRESS:
DESCRIPTION OF OBJECT: OIL PTG on CANVAS — ABSTRACT #7 by LAWREN
HARRIS
27 / 34
Lawren Harris
DIMENSIONS: 100.4 cm x 230.0 cm (43 7/16" x 48 7/16")
FILE NUMBER: 2/83 Arc # VAG 50.5
DATE OF EXAMINATION: 16/6/83
PHOTOGRAPHS: BEFORE TR 4x5 TRANSP. COLOUR (FOR CATALOGUE)
TECHNICAL HISTORY/CONDITION/EXAMINATION REPORT:
FRAMING: FRAME IS PTD WOOD MOULDING. THERE IS A MASONITE PEG
BOARD BACKING, BUT NO EDGE PROTECTION. THE FRAME IS SECURED WITH
BLOCKS OF WOOD SCREWED INTO FRAME + STRETCHER.
SUPPORT: THE SUPPORT IS FIRMLY WOVEN COTTON DUCK TACKED TO A S[5]MEMBER STRAINER. THE PTG. APPEARS STRUCTURALLY SOUND.
PAINT/GROUND: THE GROUND IS ESTIMATED TO BE OIL, PREP. BY THE ARTIST.
THE OIL PAINT IS APPLIED AS BRUSH-MARKED PASTE, CARE-FULLY +
DELIBERATELY TEXTURED AS PART OF THE DESIGN. THERE ARE NO DEFECTS
IN THE PAINT LAYERS EXCEPT EXTENSIVE WRINKLING, CLEAVAGE + FLAKING IN
THE PINK AREA IN THE TOP RIGHT QUADRANT. THERE IS ALSO SLIGHT
ALLIGATOR CRACKING IN A GREEN SEMI CIRCLE 80 cm FROM THE LEFT, 83 cm
UP.
SURFACE CTG: MOST LIGHT AREAS APPEAR TO HAVE NO SURFACE COATING.
MANY OF THE DARKS APP. TO HAVE BEEN COATED WITH WAX. THE RESULTING
DIFFERENCES IN GLOSS SEEM TO HAVE BEEN PLANNED BY THE ARTIST.
HOWEVER, THE WAX COATING HAS BECOME WHITISH, + THERE IS A HEAVY
ACCUMULATION OF SUFACE DIRT OVERALL. THERE IS ALSO A PROMINENT
PENCIL SMUDGE IN THE TOP RIGHT CORNER: (OVER)
CONDITION SUMMARY.
DAMAGE: SLIGHT — SMALL LOSSES ACCOMPANYING FLAKING IN TOP RIGHT
QUADRANT.
STRUCTURAL INSECURITY: OVERALL, SLIGHT. LOCAL, EXTREME — LOOSE,
FLAKING PAINT AS NOTED ABOVE.
DISFIGUREMENT: MARKED — WHITISH ACCRETIONS ON DARK AREAS, AS
WELL AS SURFACE DIRT GREYING + DULLING THE OVERALL TONALITY OF THE
WORK
PROPOSED TREATMENT/TREATMENT RECORD:
1. REMOVE WHITISH ACCRETIONS WITH BENZINE.
2. REMOVE SURFACE DIRT WITH MOISTURE.
3. CONSOLIDATE FLAKING PAINT WITH BEVA 371 [FILLED WITH GESSO PUTTY
in red ink]
4. RETOUCH LOSSES WITH [POWDER PIGMENTS IN B-72 ACRYLIC RESIN
crossed out] [WATERCOL. in red ink]
5. APPLYING SURFACE COATING IS NOT RECOMMENDED FOR AESTHETIC
REASONS.
6. PAD FRAME WITH FELT + [REPLACE WOOD FASTENINGS WITH METAL
PLATES crossed out] [REFRAME WITH EXISTING FASTENERS in red ink]
28 / 34
Lawren Harris
Press Release
1986-02-04
[transcription]
VANCOUVER
ART
GALLERY
Press Release
750 HORNBY STREET, VANCOUVER, B.C., CANADA V6Z 2H7 (604) 682-5621
February 4, 1986 - 06
Reference: Dorothy Metcalfe
Information Officer: Local 245
LAWREN HARRIS EXHIBITION
INTRODUCES RARE COLLECTION OF PAINTINGS
ATMA BUDDHI MANAS The Later Work of Lawren S. Harris opens Saturday,
February 8 at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario
under Dennis Reid, Curator of Canadian Historical Art, it includes 88 works, all
oil paintings with the exception of three graphite studies. The exhibition marks
the centenary of Harris' birth and deals with him as an abstract painter whose
work produced between the mid-thirties to 1968, is virtually unknown to the
public and misunderstood by specialists, according to Mr. Reid.
Harris was a founder of the Group of Seven.
"He (Harris) painted for 35 years following the last exhibition of the Group of
Seven, yet we are ignorant of half of the creative life of one of Canada's most
important and influential artists," writes Mr. Reid in the exhibition catalogue.
"...there are masterpieces here, on a level with the most important geometric
abstraction done anywhere during our century," John Bentley Mays reported in
the Globe and Mail when the exhibition opened in Toronto last November.
Harris and his wife, Bess, settled in Vancouver in 1940. He was elected to the
Council of the Vancouver Art Gallery Association the following year, retaining that
position until 1957. During this period he was instrumental in establishing the
Gallery's focus on contemporary art.
"He was an early and passionate champion of Emily Carr at a time when her
work was little understood in her home province," says VAG curator, Scott
Watson. "He represented all that an artist was and could be to a generation
which sought models, including architect Arthur Erickson and painter Gordon
Smith, both of whom attended Harris' legendary weekly salons. It is of special
significance that Harris' work will now be seen in gallery spaces designed by
Erickson."
This exhibition was made possible by a generous grant from Chemical Bank of
Canada and assisted by a grant from the Canada Council. The 112-page
catalogue will be available at the Gallery Shop. The exhibition continues through
March 16.
-30-
29 / 34
Lawren Harris
Circulating Condition Report
Conservation
1994-04-15
[transcription]
McMichael
CANADIAN ART
COLLECTION
D'ART CANADIEN
Cat. #79
CRATE #19
CIRCULATING CONDITION REPORT
EXHIBITION: THE INFORMING SPIRIT
WORK:
Lawren S. Harris
Abstract No. 7 c.1939
oil on canvas
110.5 x 123.2 cm
The Vancouver Art Gallery, Founders Fund
Cat. #79
Crate #19
CONDITION REPORT:
Painting: — see VAG report attached
Frame: — see VAG report attached
Conservator [signed]
APR 15 1994
Date
SPR Monica Smith May 10th. [handwritten]
30 / 34
Lawren Harris
Outgoing Condition Report
Conservation
1999-07-13
[transcription]
VANCOUVER ART GALLERY
OUTGOING CONDITION REPORT
ARTIST: Lawren Harris
ACCESSION NO.: VAG 50.5
TITLE: Abstract No. 7
DATE: 1939
MEDIUM: Oil on Canvas
DIMENSIONS: 110.5 x 123.2 cm
EXHIBITION: Lawren Stewart Harris
Americas Society, New York&emsp;&emsp;Sept.-Nov. 2000
[Appleton Art Museum, Florida Dec.-Jan.200 crossed out]
McMichael Art Gallery of Hamilton [handwritten]
GENERAL: All measurements taken in cm, sighted from outside edge of work
AUXILIARY SUPPORT: Strainer, wooden, mitered corners, one vertical crossbar.
Good condition.
SUPPORT: Canvas, medium weight cotton canvas, tension good. Good
condition.
DESIGN LAYER: Oil, overall good condition.
ONE AREA TO BE MONITORED FOR RECURRING UNSTABLE CONDITION:
Light pink area, top right quadrant underwent treatment for lifting, cleavage and
flaking paint. This area was consolidated, filled and inpainted in 1983. No
reoccurrence to date.
Brush hairs: many overall imbedded in paint (inherent).
Abrasions: along left and bottom edges caused by rabbit [rabbet] of frame
Uneven/ patchy appearance to surface gloss: darker areas glossy, light areas
mat Spotty/patchy appearance in several of the dark shiny areas:
-in dark blue area 8.0 x 4.0 at 32.0L x 14.0B
-in central dark triangle area
-in dark green strip along left side of work
-in center of circle, lower center of work
White speck: at 49.5L x 33.0B
Abrasions: 4 pale rub like marks size and location as follows:
1. 7.0 vertical at 40.0B x 36.5R
2. 12.0 vertical at 38.0B x 31.0R
3. 11.0 vertical at 38.0B x 19.5R
4. 8.0 diagonal at 37.0B x 14.0R
31 / 34
Lawren Harris
2 dark abrasion marks in LL corner area
-5.0 diagonal at 4.0L x 11.5B
-2.0 diagonal at 4.5L x 13.2B
4.0 horizontal, white scuff line at 1.0B x 41.5L
FRAME: Wood, painted, worn all over, sound condition.
SIGNED [signed Monica Smith in ink]
Monica Smith
Conservator
DATE: July 13, 1999
750 HORNBY STREET, VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA VGZ 2H7 TEL (604)
682-4668 FAX(604) 682-1086
Exhibition: Lawren Stewart Harris: A Painter's Progress
Borrower: Americas Society
Re: the following work(s) from the collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery
VAG 50.5
Lawren Harris
Abstract No.7
Receiving Venue:
Loan dates:
Signed: DUFFY [signed in ink]
Date: 1 Sept 00 [handwritten]
Comments:
INWARD
(Please initial & date)
sporty/patchy appearance in darks is blandring in varnish or paint indicated in
red outline on photo (but not visible on photo—new condition?) — otherwise no
new conditions. [handwritten]
MD 9/1/00 [handwritten]
OUTWARD
(Please initial & date)
No Change [handwritten]
JRW 11/6/00 [handwritten]
32 / 34
Lawren Harris
Outgoing Condition Report
Conservation
1999-07-19
[transcription]
VANCOUVER ART GALLERY
OUTGOING CONDITION REPORT
ARTIST: Lawren Harris
TITLE: Abstract No. 7
ACCESSION NO.: VAG 50.5
DATE: 1939
DIMENSIONS: 110.5 x 123.2 cm
EXHIBITION: 75th; Anniversary Exhibition; Lawren Harris
Edmonton Art Gallery. September 10, 1999 to January 16, 2000
GENERAL: All measurements taken in cm, sighted from outside edge of work
AUXILIARY SUPPORT: Strainer, wooden, mitered corners, one vertical crossbar.
Good condition.
SUPPORT: Canvas, medium weight cotton canvas, tension good. Good
condition.
DESIGN LAYER: Oil, overall good condition.
ONE AREA TO BE MONITORED FOR RECURRING UNSTABLE CONDITION:
Light pink area, top right quadrant underwent treatment for lifting, cleavage and
flaking paint. This area was consolidated, filled and inpainted in 1983. No
reoccurrence to date.
Brush hairs: many overall imbedded in paint (inherent).
Abrasions: along left and bottom edges caused by rabbit [rabbet] of frame
Uneven/patchy appearance to surface gloss: darker areas glossy, light areas
mat
Spotty/patchy appearance in several of the dark shiny areas:
-in dark blue area 8.0 x 4.0 at 32.0L x 14.0B
-in central dark triangle area
-in dark green strip along left side of work
-in center of circle, lower center of work
White speck: at 49.5L x 33.0B
Abrasions: 4 pale rub like marks size and location as follows:
- 7.0 vertical at 40.0B x 36.5R
-12.0 vertical at 38.0B x 31.0R
-11.0 vertical at 38.0B x 19.5R
-8.0 diagonal at 37.0B x 14.0R
FRAME: Wood, painted, worn allover, sound condition
33 / 34
Lawren Harris
SIGNED: [Monica Smith in ink]
Monica Smith
Conservator.
DATE: July 19, 1999
750 Hornby Street, Vancouver British Columbia V6Z 2H7
Tel:(604)662-4700 Fax:(604)682-1086
Terms and Conditions
The images, texts, documentation, illustrations, designs, icons and all other
content are protected by Canadian and international copyright laws. The content
may be covered by other restrictions as well, including copyright and other
proprietary rights held by third parties. The Vancouver Art Gallery retains all
rights, including copyright, in data, images, text and any other information. The
Gallery expressly forbids the copying of any protected content, except for
purposes of fair dealing, as defined by Canadian copyright law.
34 / 34

Lawren Harris - Vancouver Art Gallery

Transcription

Similar documents

to see the press release - Brantford Station Coffee House and Gallery

God`s Trombones

request to correct name or address on a real property account

Alexander Harris

Second Wind January 2014

Harris Falcon III ® RF-7850A-TM001 Roll-on/Roll

TOWNSHOES PARK ROYAL FIT OUT

Harris Falcon III® RF-7850A

RF-6705-SW001

New Senior Classes Added!