Lawren Harris

Lawren Stewart Harris was born in Brantford, Ontario, and studied art in Berlin before settling in Toronto. A painter, writer and theorist, he advocated an independent Canadian art. He played a leading role in establishing the Group of Seven and provided financial support for his colleagues' working spaces. His early work includes streets and houses, before landscape became a central concern.

Lake Superior, the Rocky Mountains and the Arctic supplied motifs that he simplified into large, clearly organised masses. Light and relationships between forms give nature a spiritual dimension. From the mid-1930s, this investigation led him towards abstraction. His development connects observation of particular places with a desire to make inner experience visible, extending landscape painting beyond the description of topography into a sustained exploration of form.