Bulletin 23, 1974

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Nationalist Aspects of Lawren S. Harris's Aesthetics

by Peter Larisey

Pages  1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  6  |  7 

Notes 

30 Lawren Harris, "The Paintings and Drawings of Emily Carr," Emily Carr: Her Paintings and Sketches (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1945), p. 20.

31 Lawren Harris, "Creative Art in Canada" (1928).

32 Lawren Harris, "The Group of Seven and Canadian History" (1948), p. 37. Harris was quoting verbatim from his 1928 article "Creative Art and Canada," p. 10.

33 Lawren Harris, " Revelation of Art in Canada" (1926), pp.85-86.

34 Ibid., pp. 87-88.

35 Ibid.

36 Ibid.

37. Bess Harris and R. G. P. Colgrove, eds, Lawren Harris (Toronto: MacMillan and Co., 1969), p. 48; hereafter referred to as "Colgrove."

38Lawren Harris, "The Federal Art Commission," a letter to the editor, The Globe (Toronto), 4 June 1914.

39 Lawren Harris, "Creative Art and Canada" (1928), p. 8.

40 Colgrove, p. 48.

41 Ibid., p. 11.

42. Lawren Harris, "Winning a Canadian Background" (1923), p. 37.

43 Lawren Harris, " Revelation of Art in Canada" ( 1926), p. 87.

44 Lawren Harris, "Modem Art and Aesthetic Reactions," Canadian Forum, vol. VII, no. 80 (May 1927), pp. 240-241. Harris was himself the only Canadian member of the Société Anonyme and was responsible for the exhibition's coming to Toronto. He argued with the Exhibition Committee of The Art Gallery of Toronto about it and threatened to bring the exhibition to Toronto himself and arrange for its showing, if The Art Gallery of Toronto remained opposed to it. See letter from Lawren Harris, updated, from Toronto, to the Exhibition Committee of The Art Gallery of Toronto, on file at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Harris's correspondence with the American Katherine Dreier, then president of the Société Anonyme, is at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

In the same year, Harris again contrasts European and Canadian attitudes - this time to paintings of nudes - in an editorial article in Canadian Forum, later in 1927." But then what is commonplace in Paris may be untoward in Toronto." He refers to the "carloads" of nudes produced by European artists "monthly," and insists, " Europe accepts them. We don't...."

Lawren Harris, "The Nudes at the C. N. E.," Canadian Forum, vol. VIII, no. 85 (October 1927), p. 391.

45. Lawren Harris, " Revelation of Art in Canada" ( 1926), p. 87.

46. Lawren Harris, "Creative Art and Canada" (1928), p. 8.

47. Ibid., p. 8-9.

48. Ibid., p. 8.

49. See footnote 32, above. Harris was careful, however, as early as 1928, to dissociate his notions of race and nationalism from the combative and competitive meanings they were then acquiring. (Lawren Harris, "Creative Art and Canada" [1928], p. 7.) See also his condemnation of German racism in his article, "Theosophy and the Modem World: War and Europe," The Canadian Theosophist, vol. XIV, no. 9 (15 November 1933), p. 288.

50. The two exhibitions in 1939 in which Harris exhibited as an American were American Art Today at the New York World's Fair, and Contemporary Art at the Golden Gate International Exposition, San Francisco. In the former, Harris's Composition No. 10 is illustrated on p. 92 of the catalogue, American Art Today (New York: National Art Society, 1939). Harris is referred to as coming from New Mexico. In the San Francisco exhibition catalogue, Harris is referred to as coming from Sante Fe, New Mexico. His Composition is no. 169 of the list entitled "The United States" in the Official Catalogue, Department of Fine Arts, Division of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture (San Francisco; 1939, n. p.).

However, both at the New York World's Fair and at the Golden Gate International Exposition, Harris also exhibited as a Canadian. At New York, in the exhibition of Canadian art, I August - 15 September, Harris exhibited two works in the exhibition Canadian Group of Painters. These were Bylot Island, and North Creenland Coast, nos 20 and 21 in the catalogue, Canadian Croup of Painters (Ottawa: 1939), p. 9. At San Francisco Harris exhibited Country North of Lake Superior and Lake and Mountains, nos 7 and 8 in the Canadian section of the same Contemporary Art exhibition as above. Harris was responsible for the selection of the other Canadian works for this exhibition (Ibid.).

51 Lawren Harris, "Creative Art and Canada" (1928), p. 7.

52 Colgrove, p. 96.

53 Lawren Harris, 1948, quoted by Sydney Key, in his essay, "The Paintings," in Lawren Harris: Paintings 1910-1948 (exhibition catalogue) (Toronto: The Art Gallery of Toronto, 1948), p. 32.

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