Lake Superior

Lawren Stewart Harris, Canadian, 1885 - 1970

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about 1948

Oil on canvas

Overall: 34 1/4 × 40 1/2 in. (87 × 102.8 cm)

Frame: 42 1/2 × 49 in. (108 × 124.5 cm)

Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Gift of the artist, Lawren S. Harris, in memory of his uncle, William Kilborne Stewart, through the Friends of Dartmouth Library

© Family of Lawren S. Harris

P.951.77

Geography

Place Made: Canada, North America

Period

20th century

Object Name

Painting

Research Area

Painting

Not on view

Inscriptions

Inscribed, in graphite, on stretcher: Reserved / Dr. Norman Mackenzie / 1948; For Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, U.S.A.

Label

Lawren Harris’s bold, magisterial composition serves as a summation of the artist’s theosophist belief in the unity and order of the universe and his desire to inspire a sense of elevated spirituality in the viewer. The repeated arc-like shapes integrate the composition visually and invoke universal harmony. Truman Lowe engages with familiar patterns observed in nature and more specifically within his Ho-Chunk homelands. Wing is derived entirely from wood and plant materials, recognizing the sculptural capacity of organic matter. Lowe worked intimately with corkscrew willow and had the unique ability to give the tree an aqueous quality.

From the 2022 exhibition This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, curated by Jami C. Powell, Curator of Indigenous Art; Barbara J. MacAdam, former Jonathan L. Cohen Curator of American Art; Thomas H. Price, former Curatorial Assistant; Morgan E. Freeman, former DAMLI Native American Art Fellow; and Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art

Course History

ENVS 80, Writing Our Way Home, Terry Tempest Williams, Spring 2012

WRIT 5, Expository Writing, William Craig, Winter 2014

WRIT 7 , Religion and Literature: Re-visioning the Natural, Nancy Crumbine, Spring 2015

ANTH 7.05, Animals and Humans, Laura Ogden, Winter 2022

GEOG 31.01, Postcolonial Geographies, Erin Collins, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ARTH 5.01, Introduction to Contemporary Art, Mary Coffey and Chad Elias, Winter 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

SPAN 65.15, Wonderstruck: Archives and the Production of Knowledge in an Unequal World, Silvia Spitta and Barbara Goebel, Summer 2022

Exhibition History

1st exhibition of Mr. Harris' works held in the Carpenter Art Galleries, Carpenter Hall, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June, 1931.

American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 9-December 9, 2007.

Exhibited in the Hood Museum Lobby in conjunction with the Second Pearson-Dickey Conference on the United States and Canada, Hood Museum, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, November 1, 1988-January 5, 1989.

Expanding Horizons: Painting and Photography of American and Canadian Landscape 1860-1918, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Quebec, June 18-September 27, 2009, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia, October 17, 2009-January 17, 2010.

Hopkins Center Art Galleries for the Canadian Program, Strauss Gallery, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, February, 1967.

In Residence: Contemporary Art at Dartmouth, Friends and Owen Robertson Cheatham Galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 18-July 6, 2014.

Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 5, 1998-September 12, 1999.

Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, May 14, 1997-June 22, 1997.

Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 16, 1997-March 10, 1998.

Lawren Harris, Treasury Room Baker Library, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, 1952

The Dartmouth Collection: 19th & 20th Century Paintings, Jaffe-Frided Gallery, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 17-November 6, 1982.

The Expressionist Landscape organized by the Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama, September 11, 1987-August 21, 1988.

This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 5–July 22, 2022.

Publication History

Interciencia. Amazonia: Deforestation and Possible Effects. Caracas, Venezula: CROMTIP, Cover Illustration. 1989.

The Expressionist Landscape: North American Modernist Painting, 1920-1947. Published by the Briminham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama, 1988. p.140 (fig. 87); P. 191.

Treasures of the Hood Museum, Dartmouth College, New York, Hudson Hill Press, 1985, p. 134, no. 125.

(See Canadian Landscape Painting catalogue, nos. 67-71)

"Canadian Art"

Dartmouth Alumni Magazine. January 1952. p. 12.

Various authors, Elements of Literature, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2001, 1284 pp., ill. p. 1156.

Barbara J. MacAdam, American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Muesum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2007, p. 88, no. 64.

Hillaird T. Goldfarb, ed., Expanding Horizons: Painting and Photography of American and Canadian Landscapes 1860-1918, Montreal, Quebec: The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts / Somogy Art Publishers, 2009, ill. p. 299, cat. no. 188

Michael R. Taylor and Gerald Auten, In Residence: Contemporary Artists at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2013, ill. p. 31, no. 13

Provenance

The artist; given to present collection, 1951.

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