Sold for: $224,200

PROVENANCE
The Art Emporium, Vancouver, 1984
Private Collection, Vancouver

LITERATURE
Doris Mills, L.S. Harris Inventory, 1936, Algoma Sketches, Group 2, listed, catalogue #2/133, location noted as the Studio Building
Paul Duval, Lawren Harris: Where the Universe Sings, 2011, pages 157 and 159

It was Lawren Harris who organized the first Group of Seven trip to Algoma in fall of 1918, in a boxcar outfitted for camping and painting. Algoma was so spectacular and inspiring that Harris and various other Group members visited it again in 1919, 1920, 1921 and 1923. Harris is documented as having been at Sand Lake in 1921, along with A.Y. Jackson and Arthur Lismer. The opulence of colour in the Algoma woods particularly impressed Harris, who stated, “We found that there was a wild richness and clarity of colour in the Algoma woods, which made the colour in southern Ontario seem grey and subdued.” The intensity of form, colour and pattern there was almost overwhelming, and Harris recalled that “it was like opening a Pandora’s box of pictorial possibilities.” In this sumptuous painting, Harris captured a brilliant autumn tapestry, in which gold and orange foliage is interwoven with evergreens and reflected back in the still waters of the lake. Harris has mastered the “Pandora’s box” of possibilities in the raw landscape in Sand Lake, Algoma—and created an exquisite jewel of a painting.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars