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Lawren Harris painted on the north shore of Lake Superior every autumn from 1925 to 1928, producing a large number of oil sketches and some of the finest paintings of his career. In 1948 he wrote, “We found that there were cloud formations and rhythms peculiar to different parts of the country and to different seasons of the year, We found that, at times, there were skies over the great Lake Superior which, in their singing expansiveness and sublimity, existed nowhere else in Canada.” Increasingly he turned away from the rocky hills and focused on the dramatic light effects over the waters of Lake Superior. Harris exhibited his first sketch of Pic Island at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto in 1926. Yet he had painted the island before 1925 as there are sketches of Pic Island on smaller panels. But it was after 1925 that he began to paint canvases from these sketches. Devoid of the sculptured forms and the thick paint of the mid-twenties, these canvases are evenly brushed, as if the paint were infused on the canvas, creating effects of glowing light and colour.

(Fig. 1) Pic Island, c. 1927, oil on canvas 38 x 44 in. (96.5 x 111.8 cm.) Private Collection

Pic Island (fig. 1) was worked up by Harris in a canvas of the same name that was in the collection of Jennings Young of Toronto in 1970. The canvas was included in the 1963 Harris retrospective exhibition (catalogue number 33) as dating from 1925 but most likely dating from after that date. In both sketch and canvas, Harris has omitted any details of the foreground shore, simplifying it to a curving line that rises to the left embracing Pic Island. The light piercing the clouds forms broad patterns on the surrounding water and the overhead clouds are backlit emphasizing their weight. The clouds and island share the same solidity. The source of the light is absent in the sketch but in the canvas Harris has emphasized the upper bands of clouds and a dappled light descends from the top, illuminating the clouds and water. This sketch was one especially chosen by Bess Harris for her collection of exceptional Harris sketches.

Charles C. Hill, C.M. From Lawren Harris & Canadian Masters, Alan Klinkhoff Gallery, 2017

Charlie Hill began working at the National Gallery of Canada in 1972 and was Curator of Canadian Art from 1980 to 2014. The exhibitions he organized  and publications he wrote include “Canadian Painting in the Thirties” (1975), “To Found a National Gallery. The Royal Canadian Academy of Arts 1880-1913” (1980), “Morrice A Gift to the Nation The G. Blair Laing Collection” (1992) and “The Group of Seven Art for a Nation” (1995). He was co-curator and contributed essays to the catalogues of “Tom Thomson” (2002), “Emily Carr A New Perspective” (2006) and “Artists, Architects, Artisans Canadian Art 1890 - 1918” (2013). He was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in 2000, received an Honorary Doctorate from Concordia University in 2007 and the Award of Distinguished Service from the Canadian Museums Association in 2012.