Lawren Stewart Harris 1885 - 1970

Laing Galleries, Toronto
Purchased by Dr. Jack C. Egan (Sept. 13, 1966)
University of St. Michael's College, the Basilian Fathers, Toronto
A.K. Prakash & Associates Inc., Toronto
Private Collection

Lawren Harris Retrospective, Art Gallery of Toronto, 1948, no. 16

Lawren Harris, "Little Houses," Contrasts; a book of verse, Toronto, 1922. p. 19, for a poem related to works of this subject.
Jeremy Adamson, Lawren S. Harris Urban Scenes and Wilderness Landscapes 1906-1930, Art Gallery of Ontario, 1978, pp. 99-122, for a discussion of Harris' urban scenes 1919-1922, p. 115, fig. 12, reproduced.

Harris, like everyone else in Canada, had been traumatized by the Great War of 1914-18. His brother had been killed in the trenches of France, and this loss sent Harris into an emotional spiral that ended in a breakdown and a medical discharge from the army. In addition, Tom Thomson, his friend and protégé, had died before the war’s end. The decimation of a whole male generation of friends and acquaintances only added to his sense of depression and, finally, strengthened his urge to find a spiritual raison d’être for his life.

In remarkably short order, however, Harris had pulled himself together, found an inspiring autumn painting ground in Algoma and, determined to meet the new requirements of the Canadian zeitgeist, drew around him the friends who would honour Tom Thomson by founding the Group of Seven and show Canadians what their country really looked like, and do so in fresh, audacious, and sweeping terms.

Part of the purpose of showing Canada to Canadians, was to document the history and character of the country: not just the primæval forest, but the remnants of earlier settlements, the disappearing civilizations that Europeans were quickly displacing, the quaint buildings of early Quebec, which Jackson loved to paint, and both the new and the old urban societies that were growing so rapidly at that time.

Having so lovingly rendered the homes, large and small, in  ‘The Ward’ (as it was called) and elsewhere in Toronto, Harris’s fascination with the small villages of Ontario was not an unusual subject for him to tackle. He had been painting these sorts of places for nearly a decade by 1920-21, when he focussed on these ‘painted ladies’ of Barrie, Ontario.

With a boldness and a brilliance that mark so many of his great works, Harris elevated these main-street denizens of a small town, which wasn’t far from one of his summer retreats on Lake Simcoe, to dowager-like status – aged but dignified, dressed and made up as if for the stage but still admirable and respected. His composition is innovative, yet not radical; the ambiance he has provided is sunny, full of light and warmth; his choice of colours is, as usual, vivid, apt, and gratifying; and his brushwork, unlike that of all his companions in the Group of Seven, is broad, decisive, generous, and accurate to an uncanny degree.

Harris' book of poetry, Contrasts; a book of verse, written in the early years of the interwar period, includes a poem which speaks directly to this subject, entitled "Little Houses" (see following excerpt). The works included in this collection are referenced in multiple works on Harris, with "Little Houses" itself being referenced in Jeremy Adamson's text, as well as by Peter Larisey in Light for a Cold Land.


Excerpt from "Little Houses":

In snug little villages and on easy hillsides,
Along lazy rivers and in sleepy valleys -
Little houses tucked in little yards
Behind low, white fences or bushy green hedges,
Behind old apple trees and syringa bushes,
Or under big elms -
Plump, well fed, clean little houses,
A big, round rain barrel by the side door,
Old-lady-like front porches, and fat rear porches,
And full woodsheds -
Lots of wood for the winter,
For the kitchen range and the big base burner in the
       sitting room -
Homes for contented folk,
Easy-going, fruit-preserving, cookie-making folks



Additional Literature:

Jeremy Adamson, Lawren S. Harris Urban Scenes and Wilderness Landscapes 1906-1930, Art Gallery of Ontario, 1978, pp. 115, 118 for a reference to and excerpt from "Little Houses".
Peter Larisey, Light for a Cold Land, Toronto, 1993, pp. 84-5 for a reference to "Little Houses," pp. 52-55 for a discussion of Contrasts ("Harris's Major Writings on Art, Mysticism and Nationalism, 1918-30").