In From North Shore of Lake Superior, 1921

Collection of the Artist, Vancouver Dominion Gallery, Montreal Theodosia Dawes Bond Thornton, Montreal, 29 May 1951 at $250 Estate of Theodosia Dawes Bond Thornton, Montreal Heffel, auction, Toronto, 24 November 2011, lot 159 as circa 1921-1926 Private Collection, Toronto

"Lawren Harris", Dominion Gallery, Montreal, May-June 1951

Theodosia Dawes Bond Thornton, Personal Art Collection Catalogue, unpaginated, reproduced, no. R30 A.Y. Jackson, postmarked Port Coldwell, to Florence Clement, Kitchener, 12 October [1922], Box 95, Naomi Jackson Groves Fonds, MG30-D351, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa Lawren S. Harris, 'The Group of Seven in Canadian History,' "The Canadian Historical Association Report of the Annual Meeting Held at Victoria and Vancouver, June 16-19, 1948", Toronto, 1948, pages 34, 35 Bess Harris, Vancouver to Max Stern, Montreal, 22 January 1951 and L. S. Harris, Vancouver to Max Stern, Montreal, 29 April 1951, both in Box 391, File 8: Emily Carr, Dominion Gallery papers, Library and Archives, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa 'Art: Interesting works by Lawren Harris,' "The Gazette", Montreal, 26 May 1951

In 1948 Lawren Harris wrote about his first sketching expedition with A.Y. Jackson on the north shore of Lake Superior in 1921. “There...we found new and inspiring subjects, both in the hills along the shores of the great lake and inland in the high country with its rugged scenery, rocky streams, and innumerable lakes. In the autumn of each of the next four years we camped on or near the shores of Lake Superior from Heron Bay to Rossport, and usually remained there until the end of October.” The two artists returned to the north shore in October 1922 and on 12 October Jackson wrote to his cousin Florence Clement in Kitchener, “A week from tomorrow we will probably board the Toronto train. Yesterday we moved from Port Munro where nobody lives to Pike Lake where nobody lives.... It has been very foggy .... Color has not been bright but the weather has. We got fed up on sunshine, and want something rough.” The cold light and restrained palette of Harris’ oil sketch "Lake Superior Country" (McMichael Canadian Art Collection, 1972.7), dated October 1922, clearly shows the artist’s sensitivity to the varying effects of light and colour resultant from the changing weather, while the bright autumn colour in this sunlit sketch suggests a possible date of fall 1921 and can be compared to Harris’ sketch confusingly titled "Country North of Lake Superior, Algoma Sketch LIII", sold by Heffel Fine Art (28 May 2014, lot 147) and catalogued as dated October 1921. Ever since he had organized a small Group of Seven exhibition in May 1944, Max Stern hoped to be able to obtain paintings from Harris for sale at the Dominion Gallery in Montreal. Finally on 22 January 1951, following a visit to the newly opened gallery on Sherbrooke Street, Bess Harris wrote from Vancouver that they had recently received about thirty Algoma, Lake Superior and Rockies sketches that had been in storage in Toronto. On 29 April, Harris sent Stern twenty-one unframed sketches, “numbered 1 to 21 on the back of each in a circle.” Harris’ framer, Alfred Boughton of Toronto, would send him frames for the sketches. The paintings were exhibited at the Dominion Gallery at the end of May when the noted Montreal collector Theodosia Dawes Bond Thornton purchased seven sketches, including "In From North Shore of Lake Superior", that is still housed in its Boughton frame. We extend our thanks to Charles Hill, Canadian art historian, former Curator of Canadian Art at the National Gallery of Canada and author of "The Group of Seven‒Art for a Nation", for his assistance in researching this artwork and for contributing the preceding essay.