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Lot # 157

Lawren Stewart Harris
1885 - 1970

North East Corner of Lake Superior II (Lake Superior Sketch, LIX)
oil on board

11 7/8 x 15 in 30.2 x 38.1 cm

Provenance:
Edgar and Dorothy Davidson, Montreal and then moving to Ottawa in 1972

In Lawren Harris’s explorations of the landscape of Canada, the theme of a single tree or small group of trees, limbless, stark and silhouetted, is a recurring one. Inspired by the burned-over forests he encountered along the north shore of Lake Superior, he would also explore this theme in his Rocky Mountain works, where storm-felled trees and trees torn from the edges of riverbanks by spring melt-waters, then beached on a gravel flat, were a strong area of interest for him. It is our natural tendency to read these trees as anthropomorphic symbols of the figure. Further, and especially within the parameters of Harris’s philosophy, we can see them as symbols of the artist’s approach to the Canadian landscape; they embody our ideal vision of the Group of Seven as painters of a bold Canadian landscape, and are a symbol of man and nature and the complex relationship that they have. They are the idea of “The North” personified.
In North East Corner of Lake Superior II (Lake Superior Sketch, LIX), the majority of Harris’s painterly focus is on the tree and its rippling shadows. For such a simply painted form, the tree commands our attention. The distant rolling hills, depicted in Harris’s Lake Superior palette, serve to echo the foreground rocks, which firmly anchor the leafless tree to the land, while the clouds, billowing and full of movement, become the branches and leaves of the tree, extending its impact into the sky and beyond. A compelling pictorial form, Harris has given the tree careful artistic attention that belies its simplicity. Polished to a pewter sheen by wind and rain, it appears to be in a state of death. But Harris’s control of light as it hits and illuminates the trunk and creates shadow on the rocks, gives the tree life. Through these techniques, of which Harris was an absolute master, a seemingly dead tree exudes great power and strength, seeming to be in an active state – striving for something, reaching for something. Of special note, the light in this work comes in from a place behind us, over our right shoulder, rather than from the distance. Harris’s work is generally very inclusive, and the direction of the light in this work, bathing us and the tree in transformative warmth, serves to further emphasize this feeling of our being a part of the moment unfolding in the painting.
In these stark trees, purified by fire and sanctified by light, Harris has captured the informing spirit of nature, of which he and the other members of the Group of Seven often spoke ~ the point of communication between man and the spiritual world. In nature, Harris found solace and communion with something greater than anything the mortal world had to offer.
Iconic Harris canvases in public collections, such as Above Lake Superior from 1922, in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario, and Lake Superior III, circa 1928, in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada, sprang from sketches such as this, and show us where Harris’s interest in the tree would take him, culminating ultimately in North Shore, Lake Superior from 1926, also in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada.

Estimation: 150,000 $ ~ 200,000 $
Sold for: 175,500.00 $

Historique des prix de vente pour cet artiste: jusqu'à 3,510,000 $
Source: L'Index des enchères d'art canadien