Robert Harris (painter)

Robert Harris CMG (September 18, 1849 – February 27, 1919) was a Welsh-born Canadian painter most noted for his portrait of the Fathers of Confederation.

Robert Harris
Self-portrait (1908)
Born(1849-09-18)September 18, 1849
Bryn y Pîn, Caerhun, Wales, UK
DiedFebruary 27, 1919(1919-02-27) (aged 69)
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
NationalityCanadian
Known forPainter

Early life

Born in Caerhun, Conwy, Wales, he came to Prince Edward Island via Liverpool with his family as a youth. He later studied art in Boston, London's Slade School of Art, and in Paris under Léon Bonnat. While abroad, he learned of Impressionism, but on his return to Canada in 1879, settling in Montreal, he painted in an academic style the social and political elite in Toronto and Montreal. He returned to study in the Bonnat Atelier once more in 1881, and the following year he exhibited in the Paris Salon.[1]

Career

His commission to paint the Fathers of Confederation came early in his career (1884) and it established his reputation as a portrait artist.

He was later commissioned by news publications of the day to create portraits of notable personalities, ranging from politicians to scoundrels. For example, he made portraits of those accused of murdering the Donnelley's for the Toronto Globe.

In the late 1900s, Harris returned to painting in an Impressionist-influenced mode after purchasing the first book in English on the subject, The French Impressionists (1860–1900) by Camille Mauclair. (His copy of the book is in the Confederation Centre Art Gallery).[2] Over the next eight years, he began to incorporate small touches of vibrant colour and the fluid brushwork of the Impressionists, while still maintaining the formal characteristics of academic portraiture.[3]

He was a founding member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts[4] (RCA) and elected president of the RCA in 1893. An important collection of his works is housed at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery in Charlottetown.

His painting, A Meeting of the School Trustees illustrating a confrontation between PEI teacher Kate Henderson and her school's trustees appeared on a Canadian stamp in 1980 and was dramatized by a Heritage Minutes.

He married Elizabeth (Bessie) Putnam in 1885 but the couple had no children. He was the brother of the architect William Critchlow Harris and took an active interest in the artwork of his cousin Kathleen Morris.[5]

Works – a selection
  • Paintings by Robert Harris
  • John A. Macdonald
  • Conference at Québec in 1864, to settle the basics of a union of the British North American Provinces, also known as The Fathers of Confederation. The original painting was destroyed when the Centre Block of the Parliament Buildings was consumed by fire in 1916.
  • A Meeting of the School Trustees 1885, National Gallery of Canada
  • Countess of Minto
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References
  1. Prakash 2015, pp. 643-647.
  2. Mauclair, Camille (1905). The French Impressionists (1860–1900). Duckworth.
  3. Prakash 2015, p. 643.
  4. Records of the Founding of the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts. Toronto: Globe Printing Co. 1879–80. p. 16.
  5. Barbara Meadowcroft, Painting Friends: The Beaver Hall Women Painters, 1999

Bibliography

Further reading
  • Moncrieff Williamson, Robert Harris: An Unconventional Biography, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1973.
Cultural offices
Preceded by
Otto Reinhold Jacobi		 President of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts
1893–1906		 Succeeded by
George Agnew Reid
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