“We were told, quite seriously, that there never would be a Canadian art because we had no art tradition.”
-Lawren Harris
Students were inspired by the work of Canadian painter, Lawren Harris and created their own winter landscapes. They used watercolour techniques as well as acrylic paint and fan brushes to paint their trees.
Lawren Harris was born in Brantford, Ontario on October 23, 1885. He is best known as a member of the Group of Seven who pioneered a distinctly Canadian painting style.
He attended Central Technical School and St. Andrew’s College to study art. From age 19-23 he studied in Berlin.
In 1910 he met J.E.H. MacDonald, and in 1911 they formed the Group of Seven. Harris financed the construction of a studio building in Toronto which would provide fellow artists with cheap or free space where they could live and work.
His landscape paintings were rich in colour and inspired by Toronto, the Georgian Bay and Algoma. He also painted the Canadian Rockies. During the 1920’s his work became more abstract, especially his stark landscapes of the Canadian Arctic.
He became so popular that he stopped signing and dating his work so that people would judge his works on their own merit and not by the artist.
He died in Vancouver in 1970.