Sold for: $121,250

PROVENANCE
Kaspar Gallery, Toronto
Sold sale of Canadian Art, Joyner Fine Art, November 17, 1995, lot 5
Private Collection, Ontario

LITERATURE
Doris Mills, L.S. Harris Inventory, 1936, Algoma Sketches, Group 2, listed, catalogue #108, location noted as Studio Building
Paul Duval, Lawren Harris: Where the Universe Sings, 2011, the 1924 canvas Northern Island II reproduced page 233

Lawren Harris’s Algoma sketches depict a wide variety of subjects. He selected deep canyons, abrupt cliffsides, tangled underbrush and beaver ponds. Sketches that interested him upon later reflection often led him to explore the subject again, and if interest was sustained, these second, third and sometimes fourth sketches might lead to major works. In this painting, we see an island of trees – or perhaps it is merely the jutting edge of a riverbank – centred in the work and given a good deal of attention. It is reminiscent of several of his major canvases, those depicting beaver ponds in particular. This cluster of trees is a steady theme in his Algoma and Algonquin work and carries through to Lake Superior. The ultimate culmination of compositions like this would come in canvases such as Northern Island II, from 1924 (in a private collection). Harris’s depictions of such subjects give them the dignity of a portrait, and if we give the sitter – here, the stand of trees – due contemplation, we can see the seed of important later works in this charming early sketch.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars