Lawren Harris in the Freezing Light

[Pierre Tavlitzki]

Born into a wealthy family, Lawren Harris did not need working. He devoted himself to painting and to the Canadian artistic life. In 1919, two years after the untimely death of Tom Thomson, he was a founding member and probably even the instigator of the Group of Seven, created to promote Canadian landscape artists.

Familiar with the country of extreme freezing, including the North Shore of Lake Superior and Baffin Bay, Harris provides a stylized vision. The composition highlights a detail in a landscape, usually frozen. The composition is reminiscent of the countless photographs of winter in Niagara, but in addition he draws the light.

Art is to Harris a medium to a metaphysical research. Dating from 1926, a painting of Lake Superior is perhaps the most complete and most reproduced of his works . A trunk stands alone in the middle of the image. It stops like a burned tree or a broken column, and is fully within the ice. The sunlight from the left is revealing an extraordinary purity of the air.

This image has been chosen to illustrate the Wikipedia article devoted to Harris. The work, 102 x 128 cm, is preserved at the National Gallery of Canada.

On November 26 in Toronto, Heffel auctions the last preparatory sketch for this painting. It is an oil on board, 30 x 38 cm, whose image is identical to the final masterpiece. It is estimated 2 MCan$.

[Pierre Tavlitzki]

Heffel auction house had understood that they had in hand a masterpiece of Harris. Sold 3.5 MCan$ including premium, this work obtains the second highest price of all time for Canadian Art, according to the press release issued after the sale.

Other outstanding results were recorded in this sale, including another painting of Harris at 2.8 MCan$ including premium, and a painting by Thomson at 2.75 MCan$ including premium.