Lawren Stewart Harris

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

Abstract "J"
oil on canvas
on verso dated 1965 and inscribed "LSH Holdings Ltd J" / "Howard Harris"
63 x 42 in, 160 x 106.7 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 59

Lawren Harris was an artist that never ceased evolving, and his passion for pushing the boundaries of his creative expression were deeply connected to his love of modern art. Harris had been instrumental in facilitating the first exhibition of abstract art in Canada, arranging for the Société Anonyme to bring a show of modern works from their collection to the Art Gallery of Toronto in 1927. He consistently traveled around the world throughout his career, taking in new styles and approaches, and eventually finding ways to incorporate novel ideas into his work. Even in the last decade of his life, the period from which Abstract J comes, he was still experimenting, in this case with minimalist and hard-edge abstract idioms. The works from this period are fascinating in their novelty, and in their divergence from what came before for the artist. His own beliefs about art, collected and published in the 1969 book Lawren Harris (edited by his wife, Bess Harris and Pete Colgrove) reflect his intrepid spirit: “It must be that all possibilities, all directions, all courses in nature and in man have to be explored, manifested, and exhausted. We live only when we adventure and give expression to the results of our adventure.”[1]

We thank Alec Blair, Director/Lead Researcher, Lawren S. Harris Inventory Project, for contributing the above essay.

1. Lawren Harris, quoted in Bess Harris and R.G.P. Colgrove, eds., Lawren Harris (Toronto: Macmillan, 1969), 138.

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