Lawren Harris

Lawren Stewart Harris CC LL. D. (October 23, 1885 – January 29, 1970) was a Canadian painter, best known as one of the founding members of the Group of Seven. He played a key role as a catalyst in Canadian art, as a visionary in Canadian landscape art and in the development of modern art in Canada.

Harris was born on October 23, 1885, in Brantford, Ontario. He was the son of Thomas Morgan Harris and Annabelle Stewart. His father was secretary to the firm of A. Harris, Sons & Company Ltd., merchants of farm machinery, which merged with the Massey firm in 1891, forming the Massey-Harris Company, later known as Massey Ferguson. Lawren Harris's share of the fortune that resulted made him free from financial cares the rest of his life. Although born to wealth, he was an individual who made his own path in his own individual way. In 1894, his father died and the family moved to Toronto. In 1899, he began to board at St. Andrew's College, which was located in Rosedale in Toronto at the time, then in 1903 attended University College at the University of Toronto.

From 1904 to 1908 he studied in Berlin under Adolf Schlabitz, Franz Skarbina, and most likely Fritz von Wille, gaining an academic foundation similar to that which was offered by the Paris academies. Harris stayed in Berlin for three years, learning about Impressionism and Post-Impressionism as well as seeing exhibitions of German and European modern art. Among these exhibitions were several of the Berlin Secession and a comprehensive review of 19th century German art. In 1908 he travelled to Austria, Italy, France and England before returning to Toronto. He brought back an influence not only from his teachers but from the Secessionist movement he had encountered in Berlin. Through his reading and teachers, he may also have learned about Theosophy.

In Toronto, to which he returned in 1908, Harris found friends through the Arts and Letters Club of Toronto which he joined in 1909, making friends with journalist Roy Mitchell, another early member. In 1910, he became interested in philosophy and Eastern thought, likely through Mitchell, and began discussing Theosophy seriously (although it was not until 1924 that he formally joined the Toronto Lodge of the International Theosophical Society). From 1910 to 1918, he focused in his painting on the urban landscape of Toronto, featuring a significantly brightened palette, an attention to light, and a layered development of space in order to convey a sense of place. In 1911, he met and became friends with J. E. H. MacDonald who was exhibiting sketches in the clubroom of the Club. Harris and MacDonald went on sketching trips and together visited the exhibition of contemporary Scandinavian art in Buffalo at the Albright Gallery (today, the Buffalo AKG Art Museum) in 1913. Seeing it, they realized that they too could create a landscape art that was distinctly Canadian and modern.

In 1913, Harris took the first step that would cement a group of like minded artists together in Canadian art, by inviting A. Y. Jackson, then in Montreal, to Toronto. The following year, he and his friend Dr. James MacCallum, financed the construction of a Studio Building in Toronto which provided artists, among them Tom Thomson, with an inexpensive space to work. In 1915, Harris fixed up a shack behind the Studio Building for Thomson whose art and dedication to his career proved inspirational for Harris.

In March 1916, Harris enlisted in the Canadian Army for service in the First World War. He was appointed a Lieutenant attached to the 10th Royal Grenadiers and served as a Musketry Instructional Officer at Camp Borden until May 1918 when he was medically discharged, suffering a nervous breakdown.

In 1918 and 1919, Harris financed boxcar trips for the artists of the later Group of Seven to the Algoma region, traveling along the Algoma Central Railway and painting in areas such as the Montreal River and Agawa Canyon. His work showed the effect of such trips: he began sketching in oil en plein air as a regular practice and used the sketches as a guide in constructing his major canvases.

In May 1920, Harris, J. E. H. MacDonald, and Franklin Carmichael, A. Y. Jackson, Frank Johnston, Arthur Lismer, and Frederick Varley, formed the Group of Seven.