Additional Images

Provenance:

Private Collection, Niagara-on-the-Lake

Literature:

Jeremy Adamson, Lawren S. Harris, Urban Scenes and Wilderness Landscapes 1906-1930, exhibition catalogue, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 1978, page 13-14, page 40, no. 11 and page 65, no. 53 reproduced.

Paul Duval, Lawren Harris: Where the Universe Sings, Cerebus Publishing, Canada, 2011, page 50.

Note:

This lot represents one of the earliest Lawren Harris canvases to appear at auction. It was executed sometime between 1905 and 1910 when a young Harris travelled to Aurora to spend time with the family of the grandparents of the present owner. While imprecise, this dating is based both on the recollection of the owners, the manner of signature, (Harris used initials to sign his work until 1910) as well as a second work in the collection whose subject’s age is known to the family allowing us to date this work - which was executed on the same visit - with increased accuracy.

In 1904 Harris left Canada to study art in Berlin. In 1905, he returned to Canada for the summer, and went back Europe once again until the end of the summer of 1907.

While clearly far removed from the works Harris would eventually produce - and oh-so much tamer, even refined - in this lot we have a notion of Harris’ early approach to composition: the contoured outline of the rising hill, the screen of trees and grasses and the clouds and sky in deep space beyond, which would later form the basis of so many of Harris wilderness sketches.

Very few works from this early formative period have been located; Jeremy Adamson illustrates two comparable works one undated and one dating from 1908 though both much smaller than this canvas.