Harris, Lawren Stewart

Harris, Lawren Stewart (1885–1970). Canadian painter, born at Brantford, Ontario, into a wealthy family. From 1904 to 1908 he studied in Berlin, where his work was influenced by Expressionism. After a period of travel in the Middle East and a stint as a magazine illustrator in Minnesota, he returned to Canada in 1909 and settled in Toronto. Early in his career his favourite subjects were cityscapes and views of houses, but after meeting J. E. H. MacDonald in 1911 he also took up landscape and from 1920 (when he was one of the founder members of the Group of Seven) this became his main interest. In 1918 he had discovered Algoma in northern Ontario, and the dramatic and colourful style he had developed was well suited to depicting the lushness of its countryside (Autumn, Algoma, Victoria University, Toronto, 1920). Harris was a follower of Theosophy (see ABSTRACT ART) and he used spectacular scenery as a way of expressing spiritual values. To this end he sought out the most overpowering landscapes he could find—in the Rockies and even the Arctic. The transcendental quality in his work was maintained when he turned to abstraction in the 1930s.

In 1934 Harris moved to Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, as artist-in-residence, then in 1938 to Santa Fé, New Mexico, where he was one of the founders of the Transcendental Group of Painters; its members—influenced by the writings of Kandinsky—sought ‘to carry painting beyond the appearance of the physical world, through new concepts of space, colour, light, and design, to imaginative realms that are idealistic and spiritual'. He returned to Canada in 1940 and settled in Vancouver, where his presence did much to stimulate the artistic scene—a number of younger artists, including Jock Macdonald, were encouraged by him. Harris, indeed, became a kind of patriarch of Canadian painting, and in 1948 he was given a large retrospective at the Art Gallery of Toronto; the exhibition then toured the country. Another major retrospective was held at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, in 1963.