Lawren Stewart Harris

ALC BCSFA CGP FCA G7 OSA RPS TPG
1885 - 1970
Canadian

Abstract "T"
oil on canvas
on verso signed, dated 1965 and inscribed "LSH Holdings Ltd T" / "Howard Harris"
66 x 44 in, 167.6 x 111.8 cm

Preview at: Heffel Calgary

PROVENANCE
Collection of the Artist
Estate of Howard K. Harris
By descent within the Harris family to the present Private Collection

LITERATURE
Peter Larisey, Light for a Cold Land: Lawren Harris's Work and Life - An Interpretation, 1993, titled as Formative III (Forming Toward Beneficence), reproduced plate 65

Lawren Harris’s creative process was based in iteration. In his landscape works, this manifested as the development of pencil sketches into oil sketches and large canvases, allowing opportunities for refinement and distillation. A similar process was found in his abstract works, where he often worked out ideas and subjects across many formats, usually starting small (as with the landscapes), and progressing to larger pieces. In his abstract subjects in particular, he would repeat subjects multiple times, seemingly attempting to find the clearest and most effective means of communicating his artistic message.
Abstract “T” provides a perfect example of this process. Painted in 1965, the origin of this painting’s essence is found in an oil on panel work painted in 1955. Over the next decade, there were no less than eight other works related to that original sketch, including the well-known abstract Atma Buddhi Manas of 1962 and its variations, of which this late period work is one. Although it has been highly simplified and the orientation changed (a common occurrence in Harris permutations), the same core elements Harris hoped to represent, relating to three different planes of being, are captured in this vibrant work.
We thank Alec Blair, Director/Lead Researcher, Lawren S. Harris Inventory Project, for contributing the above essay.

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