Provenance
Collection of Howard Harris, son of Lawren Harris
Gift of Howard Harris to Ray Eleanor Staples (Mrs. Everett Staples)
By descent to the present Private Collection, Toronto
Literature
A.Y. Jackson, "A Painter’s Country: The Autobiography of A.Y. Jackson", Toronto, 1958, pages 106-107
Bess Harris and R.G. P. Colgrove, "Lawren Harris", Toronto, 1969, page 62
In July 1924, four years after the formation of the Group of Seven, Lawren Harris and A.Y. Jackson checked into the Jasper Park Lodge with their sights set on exploring and sketching Jasper National Park. The Park covers a region of more than 10,878 kilometres of terrain. As A.Y. Jackson recounts: “In the summer of 1924 Lawren Harris took his family to Jasper Park and I went along with him, as we planned to do some work for the Canadian National Railway. We did not find the landscape around Jasper Lodges or along the railroad very interesting, and we wanted to get into the big country, so we arranged with the park superintendent, Colonel Rogers, to have our dunnage taken in by the warden’s while we walked in, first to Maligne Lake, and then to the Tonquin. At Maligne we borrowed an eighteen-foot canoe and paddled about fifteen miles to the far end of the lake. It was a weird and ancient country of crumbling mountains and big glaciers. Deciding we liked the look of the Colin Range to the east better, we borrowed a horse from the warden, piled all our supplies on him, and climbed to the top of the timber where we camped. The Colin Range was an amazing place, a kind of cubist paradise full of geometric formations, all waiting for the abstract painter.”
The viewpoint in this work is Opal Creek, painted in part of the Colin Range, now known as Queen Elizabeth Range. Harris and Jackson explored this range twice on their 1924 trip. The pair had a painterly fascination with the scenery they encountered on their hikes, despite the difficult weather of constant rain, the wonders of the rugged terrain captured the attention of the artists. Jackson recalls that, “a couple of months at Jasper improved our camping technique and made us active and tough as mountain goats. We would make camp at the timber line and from there climb a thousand feet or so and find miles of undulating county to roam over, When sketching, we would often have to build stone shelters to break the biting winds. We were strong on tea.”
The more Lawren Harris saw of Canada, or the “big country”, as Jackson called it, the more Harris understood. Harris recalled, “After I became better acquainted with the mountains, camped and tramped and lived among them, I found a power and majesty and a wealth of experience at nature’s summit.” "Colin Range (Canadian Rockies)" represents the period when Harris was breaking away from a purely nationalist mandate and working towards a more universal spiritualism. As a type of mystic, Harris may have believed that the mountains, by their sheer physical height and mass, brought him closer to eternity. Harris worked to capture his inner response to this landscape and shape it on canvas. He wanted the paintings to encapsulate his experience of the Rockies. This sketching trip marked the first experience in the mountains of western Canada for Harris, which would captivate the artist’s attention for six years.
We extend our thanks to Alec Blair, Director & Lead Researcher of the "Lawren S. Harris Inventory Project", for his assistance in researching this artwork.
