signed, titled, inscribed "Bess Harris Collection, property of Bess Harris", "BCH-76", "3" and "15" on the reverse
12 × 15 in (30.5 × 38.1 cm)
Bess Harris Collection
The Art Emporium, Vancouver
Sotheby's, auction, Toronto, 5 November 1979, lot 156 as Lake Superior Sketch XX
Private Collection, Calgary
The Paintings of Lawren Harris Compiled by Mrs. Gordon Mills, July- December 1936, Library and Archives, National Gallery of Canada as Lake Superior Sketch XV with drawing by Hans Jansen
Charles C. Hill, "Quiet Lake (Northern Painting 12)," in An Important Private Collection of Canadian Art - Part II, Cowley Abbott, Toronto, 8 June 2023, lot 125
Charles C. Hill, "Northern Lake 1922," in Select Masterworks of Canadian and International Art, Cowley Abbott, Toronto, 28 May 2025, lot 53, incorrectly identified as Lake Superior Sketch XX
A.Y. Jackson and Lawren Harris first travelled to the north shore of Lake Superior in October 1921, painting at Schreiber and Rossport. The following autumn they visited Port Coldwell, a small fishing village, on the eastern edge of present-day Neys Provincial Park. From there Jackson wrote to his cousin Florence Clement on 7 October 1922, “Today we walked three miles to a big hill and [climbed] it about a thousand feet up, and the view over Lake Superior was a wonder, about twenty or thirty miles each way, and in front some big husky islands that make [Georgian Bay’s] Giant’s Tomb look like a shoal.” Three years later Jackson and Harris returned to Port Coldwell with Frank Carmichael. Once again, on 7 October Jackson wrote a letter, this time to his friend Norah Thomson, book buyer for the T. Eaton Company. “It looks like a cold autumn though the leaves are still hanging on. We are back in our old haunts, and it is pretty good stuff. It is three years since we did any work here and it all looks new.”
Harris’ cold, sculpted landscapes of the late twenties depicting the unique light effects and vast expanse of Lake Superior and Pic Island from a foreground height are well known, but during his first sketching trips at the lake he largely focused on the rocky terrain and foliage along the shore as well as isolated, inland lakes. The title of this sketch identifies the site, above Coldwell Bay, and he probably first painted here in 1922 as there are oil sketches of similar lakes, such as Northern Lake (sold by Cowley Abbott, 28 May 2025, lot 53) painted on the small panels he used at that time (approximately 10.5 x 14 ins or 26.6 x 35.6 cms). In 1925, to better encapsulate his widening vision of this austere landscape, he began painting on slightly larger supports measuring approximately 12 x 15 ins or 30.5 x 38.1 cms., the dimensions of this sketch.
In the May 1926 Group of Seven exhibition at the Art Gallery of Toronto, Harris exhibited a somewhat dark and moody canvas titled Northern Lake (sold by Heffel Fine Art, Vancouver/Toronto, 22 May 2025, lot 118) depicting a small lake encircled by a brown shoreline and dark, bluish-green trees that are reflected in the water. Conical hills rise left and right in the background revealing the overcast sky in the centre. This canvas was worked up from a sketch painted the previous fall and is now in the McMichael Canadian Art Collection (1969.17.1).
Above Coldwell Bay includes Harris’ characteristic foreground ledge that defines the observer’s viewpoint, yet it differs from the other related sketches incorporating a vast, panorama of the rocky hills in the distance with another small lake glimpsed upper right. The predominant palette is a range of browns depicting the sculpted rocks and foliage contrasting with the blue lake, off-white sky and grey clouds that float above the horizon. The austerity of form, palette and subject matter is softened by the warmth of the cliffs’ embrace of the still blue water.
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 contributing the preceding essay.
