Lawren Harris

Biography

(1885 - 1970) Lawren Harris was born on October 23, 1885 in Brantford, Ontario to a wealthy family - the Harris’ of the Massey-Harris industrial fortune. He took up painting at an early age and studied in Germany from 1904 to 1907. He did some early illustration work for magazines and a book, but Harris was in fact the only member of the Group of Seven who was free all his life from monetary pressures and the need to earn a living in commercial art and design. Inspired by an exhibition of contemporary Scandinavian art, Harris and his fellow artists discovered how they would paint Canada with a distinctive style, which was representative of the Canadian landscape. Harris was best known for painting the north shore of Lake Superior, the Arctic, the Rocky Mountains, and other unique and powerful parts of the Canadian earth.