painting, H 42067 Sergeant G. F. Sherlow
Report a Mistake- Object Number 19710261-3103
- Event 1939-1945 Second World War
- Affiliation --
- Artist / Maker / Manufacturer Harris, Captain Lawren Phillips
- Date Made 1943
- Category Communication artifacts
- Sub-category Art
- Department Art and Memorials
- Museum CWM
- Earliest 1943/01/01
- Latest 1943/12/31
- Medium oil
- Support canvas
- Materials Not applicable
- Service Component Canadian Army
- Unit Veterans Guard of Canada
- Person / Institution Subject, Sherlow, Sergeant G. F.
- Measurements Height 57.0 , Width 46.5
- Caption Lawren P. Harris (1910 - 1994)
- Additional Information The son of Group of Seven artist Lawren S. Harris, Lawren P. Harris trained in Boston at the Museum School of Fine Arts and was encouraged to become an official war artist by the Canadian High Commissioner to Great Britain, Vincent Massey. The family connection of both to the Massey-Harris agricultural equipment firm was a factor in their initial encounters. Harris served with the Governor General's Horse Guards (3rd Canadian Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment) during the first three years of the Second World War. As a war artist he remained with them in Italy as part of the 5th Armoured Division during 1944. Most of his war landscapes depict tanks in the spectacular hilly landscape near the Melfa and Liri Rivers and towards Ortona. A majority of Harris's paintings are watercolours, a medium he was not, in fact, comfortable with, as he considered himself an oil painter. Many of the watercolours were composed on relatively small sheets of paper. The artist's characteristically careful and detailed application of paint gives them a jewel-like quality, an effect enhanced by the glowing purity of the colours. These small watercolours retain the freshness that was theirs when they were painted and amply discount Harris's perceptions of his worth as a watercolourist.