BCSFA RCA
1890 - 1969
Canadian
Near Moraine Lake
oil on canvas, circa 1929
on verso signed and titled on the Ontario Society of Artists Annual exhibition label
44 x 54 3/4 in, 111.8 x 139.1 cm
Estimate: $50,000 - $70,000 CAD
Preview at: Heffel Toronto – 13 Hazelton Ave
PROVENANCE
Collection of Bess and Lawren Harris
A gift from the Artist to her daughter-in-law Margaret “Peggie” Harris Knox, Vancouver
By descent within the family of Lawren Harris
EXHIBITED
Ontario Society of Artists Annual Exhibition, March 1931
Art Gallery of Toronto, Group of Seven, December 1931
Near Moraine Lake is a monumental canvas, an epic portrayal of a towering mountain form at a scale that befits such drama. It was painted by Bess Larkin Housser Harris and exhibited in the 1931 Group of Seven exhibition. The emergence of a museum-quality work of such grandeur, and with such history, is a true rarity and provides a unique moment to reconsider, and celebrate, the artist’s legacy.
Harris was known during her lifetime as a key member of a circle of artists and art enthusiasts who, in the early twentieth century, endeavoured to establish and define a new form of distinctly Canadian art. Harris was both a supporter of this movement, whose success is mostly associated with the much-celebrated legacy of the Group of Seven, and an active participant with her own artistic output. Her contributions to Canadian art are increasingly being recognized and appreciated, and her works reconsidered in the historical canon.
In the 1920s, Bess and her first husband, Fred Housser, were instrumental in supporting the work of the Group—as collectors, friends, fellow theosophists, and public defenders. Importantly, in addition to this work, she was an enthusiastic and talented artist in her own right. Alongside others in her Toronto circle, she was encouraged and inspired to paint, and from 1926 on, she exhibited as a regular invited contributor in the Group of Seven exhibitions.
In the same spirit as the Group, Harris also embarked on sketching holidays to some of their known sketching grounds, including a 1928 trip to the Canadian Rockies, where she sketched with Isabel McLaughlin and Yvonne McKague (later Housser). Along the path to Moraine Lake, sitting side by side, Harris and McKague sketched their own versions of the impressive and imposing Tower of Babel, situated in front of the sharp peak of Mount Fay, the subjects seen here. If one could peer over the rocks in the bottom right, the iconic turquoise water of glacier-fed Moraine Lake would appear at the foot of the scree slopes.
A sketch by McKague of this very scene is now in the collection of the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, and there are multiple sketches of this perspective in Bess Harris’s catalogue, including one recently donated to the Vancouver Art Gallery. Each of these artists would go on to develop canvases from this material, and the results, as seen here in Near Moraine Lake, are triumphant. Presenting a familiar scene to many who have visited what is now one of the country’s most celebrated landscapes, this canvas captures so effectively the awe that Harris must have felt in experiencing such a powerful and dramatic scene. There are obvious parallels in scale and subject with the work that her future husband, Lawren Harris, was doing at this same time.
In December 1931, this work was included in the Group of Seven show at the Art Gallery of Toronto, as one of the works of the invited guests. Also included in this show were the iconic Lawren Harris canvases Mountain Forms (figure 1, sold by Heffel in November 2016 for a record price), Isolation Peak (Hart House Collection) and Mt. Lefroy (McMichael Canadian Art Collection). The obvious resonance in composition, scale and subject matter of these works with Near Moraine Lake is striking, and one imagines that such alignment made it natural that Bess was invited to be a charter member of the newly formed Canadian Group of Painters in 1933, a successor movement to the Group of Seven, and an expansion aimed at better representation of artists across the country who were doing original and sincere work. This coincided with other changes in her life, and by the mid-1930s, Bess had married Lawren Harris and relocated to the United States, living in New Hampshire and then Santa Fe, before returning to Canada and settling in Vancouver in 1940. This work was a part of Lawren and Bess’s collection and since then has remained in the Harris family.
While in her lifetime, Bess’s artistic practice often fell behind her roles as supporter and champion of the work of her husband Lawren, in recent years, new attention is being brought to her art. Inclusion in the recent monumental McMichael exhibition Uninvited has given more people the chance to appreciate and engage with her visceral, honest and creative depictions of Canada. With the emergence of such a stunning and impressive canvas, we have a new, exciting opportunity to further understand the vital contributions Bess Larkin Housser Harris, along with her contemporaries, made in the establishment of a profound and distinct approach to landscape painting in the Canadian context.
We thank Alec Blair, Director/Lead Researcher, Lawren S. Harris Inventory Project, for contributing the above essay.
Estimate: $50,000 - $70,000 CAD
All prices are in Canadian Dollars
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