Houses, University Avenue, Toronto

Estate of Howard K. Harris Joyner, auction, Toronto, 30 May 2006, lot 108 as "Sumac (sic) St., Toronto" Estate of Robert Noakes

"British Empire Exhibition, Canadian Section of Fine Arts", Fine Arts Galleries, Wembley Park, London, 9 May-31 October 1925 as "Houses, University Avenue"

Paul Duval, "Lawren Harris: Where the Universe Sings", Toronto, 2011, page 26

In 1910 Lawren Harris returned to Toronto after completing his artistic training in Berlin and travelling in the Middle East. His first studio was located above Giles grocery store, north of Bloor and Yonge Streets. He now saw his hometown with a new perspective. His colourful “house portraits” were considered out of the ordinary and even controversial at the time. Paul Duval writes that “[Harris] had been fascinated with drawing houses since his teenage years when he first showed an interest in becoming an artist. “I suppose I just liked the shapes, the architecture of different houses and their colour,” Harris later recalled of his early fascination with the subject. From 1910 to 1918, Harris painted the buildings and streets of Toronto. In 1913, an exhibition of modern Scandinavian painting at the Albright Gallery in Buffalo had a profound effect upon him, due to its bold expression of the raw northern landscape. After this, the artist began to broaden his subject matter to include the landscape that surrounded the urban and suburban houses. As no figures are present, the scene stands as a portrait of houses and a Toronto street. For Harris, it was not merely an exercise in depicting what he saw, but incorporating what he conceived should be reality. In this respect, the artist captures the feeling of home and a token of Toronto's past, a glimpse into the urban history and development of the metropolis.