Ontario’s Algoma region holds exceptional significance for the development of modern Canadian art. Here, along the Algoma Central Railway (ACR) that climbs northward from Sault Ste. Marie, Lawren Harris and his fellow artists explored the expansive and dramatic landscapes and translated the wild scenes onto their sketching panels. These paintings became central to the formation of the Group of Seven and subsequently have become iconic elements in Canada’s cultural identity, continuing to resonate over a century later. With its composition filling the board, Algoma Sketch CIV, River and Mountain is a prime example of how Harris was able to capture the spectacular scenes of rugged northern Ontario and present them to a broader audience, changing how we viewed both our art and our country.

First visiting Algoma in the spring of 1918 alongside art patron Dr. James MacCallum, Harris realized the area’s potential as a sketching ground that could provide a wealth of subjects to aid in celebrating the scale and majesty of the Canadian landscape. Over the next four years, accompanied by artists including J.E.H. MacDonald, Frank Johnston, A.Y. Jackson and Arthur Lismer, Harris would repeatedly travel to Algoma to sketch and explore, staying in either a customized boxcar or rented cabins along the ACR. It was on one of these trips, likely in the spring of 1920 or 1921, when Harris made this fine oil sketch, while staying at Agawa Canyon.

This sketch, like all of Harris’s Algoma works, was painted on site, en plein air. Perched high on one of the steep hills overlooking the canyon, Harris captures the dark Agawa River snaking its way along the valley bottom, below the massive, tree-covered far side. This particular stop along the ACR was one of the most productive areas for members of the Group, and this overview gives a sense of scale to the splendour they encountered there, seemingly unending, and filled with countless potential compositions. MacDonald wrote upon arriving at Agawa, “The country is certainly all that Lawren and the Dr. said about it. It is a land after Dante’s heart.… The canyon seems to lead upwards, and has all the attributes of an imagined Paradise, excepting, perhaps, anything in the way of meadows. There are beautiful waterfalls on all sides, and the finest trees—spruce, elm and pine.”[1] [DESIGN: please make upwards italic]

In River and Mountain, without the autumnal tapestry adorning the hardwoods, it is the contours of the landscape that become the focal point, foreshadowing Harris’s interest in volume and underlying form, which he would fully explore in the burnt-over headlands of Lake Superior’s north shore in the coming years. Here, the vibrancy of the peaceful scene is still brought to the fore by the brilliant ultramarine shadows Harris uses.

This work hints at the direction Harris’s work was heading in the 1920s. The austerity of Lake Superior’s more northern landscapes would broaden his scope and focus, and he would capture increasingly grand visions in his sketches. River and Mountain is a strong representative of a period of critical growth in his work, a process of continued evolution and expansion that saw him constantly discovering new and exciting ways to view the Canadian environment and depict this appreciation of the land in his paintings.

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

1. Quoted in Paul Duval, The Tangled Garden: The Art of J.E.H. MacDonald (Scarborough, ON: Cerebrus Publishing, 1978), 86–87.