Download Auction Catalogue in PDF Format - Heffel

HEFFEL FINE ART AUCTION HOUSE 37
PROVENANCE:
Acquired directly from the Artist, with the assistance
of Ira Dilworth, by a Private Montreal Collector, circa 1948
By descent to the present Private Collection, England, 1978
LITERATURE:
Doris Mills, L.S. Harris Inventory, 1936, listed as Group 4 (4/9),
Lake Superior Sketches, location noted as the Studio Building,
a drawing of this work illustrated by Hans Jensen reproduced page 4
Hilliard T. Goldfarb, editor, Expanding Horizons, Painting and
Photography of American and Canadian Landscape 1860 ~ 1918,
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 2009, the canvas entitled
Lake Superior, in the collection of the Hood Museum of Art,
Dartmouth College, reproduced page 299
EXHIBITED:
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Expanding Horizons, Painting
and Photography of American and Canadian Landscape 1860 ~ 1918,
June 18 ~ September 27, 2009, traveling in 2010 to the Vancouver Art
Gallery, the related canvas entitled Lake Superior, in the collection of the
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire,
catalogue #188
Lawren Harris’s North Shore of Lake Superior works epitomize his
painting more than those of any other period, and this one is a
masterwork in every way. Personally selected by Harris for purchase by
a friend of one of his close friends, it is also the subject of a later museum
canvas. This work, from the later period of Harris’s trips to Lake Superior
which generated some of his finest works from this landscape, is a
powerful and moving example of the artist at his absolute best.
At Lake Superior, the stark landscape of rock and water, the sharp light
that cast long shadows, and the vast, unfettered distances provided Harris
with visual breathing space. This brought a new expansiveness to his
work, as did the intellectual breathing space that his relative isolation
there gave him. This allowed him, as a seeker of enlightenment, to
connect with the land’s essential spirit. There, amid the open vistas and
unending skies, Harris’s works were pared to their essentials, and the
spirit of the land was able to sing out loudly. Harris’s even brushwork
along with his delicate handling of colour gradation and pattern are very
refined in these works. Mathematical, orderly, neat and precise, the Lake
Superior works are like perfectly cut jewels, wherein something already
precious has been shaped to expose its inherent structural beauty.
Harris sometimes used his best plein air sketches as subjects for large
studio canvases. This work is such an example, being the source for the
canvas of the same name, which is in the collection of the Hood Museum
of Art at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, where Harris was an
unofficial artist~in~residence from 1934 to 1938. During this time, the
works remaining in Harris’s Toronto studio were listed in an inventory by
his friend Doris Mills, with the assistance of a resident of the Studio
Building, Hans Jensen, who produced drawings of some of the works.
The 4/9 number on the verso of Lake Superior refers to this 1936 listing. It
also tells us that the work remained at the Studio Building and that Harris
did not have access to it until his return to Canada. Upon collection of the
Lawren Harris, Lake Superior
oil on canvas, 42 1/2 x 49 in, 87 x 102.8 cm
Gift of the Artist, Lawren S. Harris, in memory of his uncle,
William Kilborne Stewart through the Friends of Dartmouth Library
Photo credit: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College
sketch, Harris elected to use it as the primary source for a work he was
preparing for the Dartmouth College Library, and he mentions it in a letter
in 1951, noting that he still had work to do on the Dartmouth canvas.
Harris was, by this time, primarily painting in an abstract manner, evident
in the resulting canvas, which leans towards the stylization of his later
abstracts.
Lake Superior was acquired directly from the artist, as the inscription on
the back notes, on his advice as well as that of Ira Dilworth. Dilworth was
a friend of the original owner as well as Harris’s long~time friend,
sometime advisor, hiking companion and partner in the Emily Carr Trust.
Dilworth taught at the University of British Columbia and worked as a
director of CBC’s British Columbian radio programs, and later of national
programming. A critical figure in the development of the arts in British
Columbia, Dilworth founded the CBC Vancouver Orchestra and was the
first President of the Vancouver Community Arts Council. He had a
superior eye for art, having selected Carr’s masterpiece Quiet for his own
collection (sold by Heffel in May of 2004). His consultation over the
selection of this superb painting with Harris is of singular significance.
In addition to having Dilworth’s and Harris’s seal of approval, Lake
Superior is fortunate to be presented still in its original frame produced by
the master framer Alfred J. Boughton, who had a studio in Toronto. This
clean~lined scooped design, painted a creamy white and edged with a
simple band of gilt, is the perfect complement to this Group period Lake
Superior masterpiece.
ESTIMATE: $400,000 ~ 600,000