Lawren Harris Trees and Snow 1924 Giclee Print | Group of Seven | Jasper Rockies Freak Storm | Canadian Mountain Art | August Snowfall

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In August 1924, Lawren Harris woke in his tent in the Tonquin Valley near Jasper to a world transformed. For days, rain had drummed relentlessly on canvas while he and A.Y. Jackson waited out the deluge in their summer camp. Then overnight the temperature plummeted. A freak storm blanketed the Rocky Mountain landscape in two feet of snow — in the middle of summer. Harris emerged from his tent at dawn to witness wilderness reborn: evergreen branches sagging under impossible loads of brilliant white snow, robin's-egg blue sky breaking through retreating clouds, and light so sharp it made him squint after days of grey rain.

He grabbed his pochade box and painted Trees and Snow on the spot — a spontaneous oil sketch capturing that moment of dazzled awakening when August became winter and summer camping transformed into Arctic expedition.

This was Harris's first trip to the Rocky Mountains, and it would alter the trajectory of his art forever. In spring 1924, he had formally joined the Toronto Theosophical Society, deepening his engagement with mystical philosophy that viewed nature as pathway to spiritual truth. The mountains offered something Algoma and Lake Superior could not: sublime architecture on a scale that suggested cosmic order. Peaks rising in geometric majesty, snowfields gleaming with white light of pure truth, atmospheric clarity that reduced landscape to essential forms — here was subject matter perfectly suited to an artist seeking spiritual expression through simplified natural forms.

Harris and Jackson had come west that summer on commission from the Canadian Pacific Railway to create murals. They spent August and early September exploring Jasper National Park's backcountry — first hiking from Jasper Lodge to Maligne Lake, then travelling by horse to the Colin Range, before trekking over Shovel Pass into the Athabasca and Tonquin valleys. Jackson later recalled their campsite at Maligne Lake's south end: "Round about were vast piles of crumbling mountains that crowded in the cold green, silt-coloured water... we decided that mountains have to be roughly handled — big rhythms running across and in, paintings built up architecturally, forms considered as abstract in determining their relationship and the creative faculty given free rein."

While Jackson found mountains inhospitable to his aesthetic sensibility — this trip would mark the end of mountain painting for him — Harris discovered his spiritual homeland. The encounter sparked a love affair with mountain landscapes that would dominate his work for the next five years, producing some of Canadian art's most iconic images.

But Trees and Snow captures something different from Harris's later monumental mountain canvases. This is not simplified geometric abstraction. This is direct observation, immediate response, a field sketch painted in excitement before the snow could melt. The brushwork is vigorous and spontaneous — thick impasto laid on with loaded brush, capturing the sculptural weight of snow bending evergreen branches earthward. Blues range from pale sky cerulean to deep shadow cobalt. The snow itself is rendered in brilliant whites and creams with shadows of blue and mauve — those distinctive Harris winter colours that suggest both physical cold and spiritual purity.

The composition features snow-laden conifers in the foreground, their branches creating rhythmic arcs across the picture plane. Behind them rises a sunlit snowbank or slope rendered in warm cream tones that contrast with the cool blues dominating the rest of the composition. The sky — that improbable August sky — glows robin's-egg blue, streaked with clouds that still carry memory of the storm. Everything speaks to freshness: fresh snow, fresh light, fresh vision.

Harris painted this sketch on wood-pulp board measuring just 10 9/16 x 13 7/8 inches — small enough to fit in his portable painting kit, large enough to capture the scene's essential drama. He did not sign it. By 1924, Harris had begun a practice of leaving many works unsigned, wanting viewers to judge paintings on their own merit rather than on artist reputation or execution date. The work now resides in the Art Gallery of Ontario's Thomson Collection, recognized as a pivotal moment in Harris's artistic evolution.

The freak snowstorm became catalyst for transformation. Harris had come to the Rockies as accomplished painter of Algoma wilderness and Lake Superior austerity. He left as artist who had glimpsed how mountain forms could express spiritual truths through geometric simplification. Within months, he would be creating the first of his great mountain canvases — works like Maligne Lake, Jasper Park that combined observed landscape with theosophical symbolism.

Jackson's records — his careful notation of weather conditions, camping locations, sketching sites — provide the documentary evidence that makes Trees and Snow more than beautiful winter study. This is verifiable moment in art history: specific date, specific location, specific meteorological event. Harris didn't invent this scene or composite it from memory in his Toronto studio. He witnessed it, shivered through it, and painted it before breakfast while snow still clung to branches and morning light revealed the improbable transformation.

The CPR mural project never materialized. But the artistic consequences of that summer proved far more valuable than any railway commission. Harris returned to Toronto with dozens of sketches documenting his Rocky Mountain encounter. In January 1925, he exhibited five mountain canvases with the Group of Seven at the Art Gallery of Toronto. National Gallery director Eric Brown wrote to Harold Mortimer Lamb: "I have just seen the Group of Seven show in Toronto. It contains many pictures done in the Rockies last year and is excellent, and much the most interesting show of modern Canadian painting ever seen."

Toronto critics were startled and delighted by the new subject matter. Here were mountains treated not as picturesque scenery but as architectural forms, spiritual presences, vehicles for artistic exploration of simplified form and pure colour. Harris had found his mature vocabulary — one that would carry him through Lake Superior's stark shorelines, through the geometric majesty of the Rockies, and ultimately to the Arctic's crystalline abstractions.

But Trees and Snow preserves something that later mountain works would shed: direct encounter with weather, spontaneous response to unexpected beauty, the thrill of witnessing wilderness transform overnight from summer green to winter white. This is Harris before full simplification, before spiritual abstraction became dominant mode. This is Harris as plein air painter responding to nature's drama with vigorous brushwork and thick paint, capturing moment rather than meditating on eternal forms.

The freak August snowstorm in the Tonquin Valley gave Harris a gift: the chance to paint winter light and snow-laden trees in summer, to experience the Rockies at their most dramatic, to witness how quickly sublime landscape could shift from one state to another. That experience — nature as transformative force, landscape as spiritual teacher — would inform everything Harris painted for the rest of his career.

Trees and Snow stands as testament to serendipity's role in artistic development. If the temperature hadn't dropped, if the storm had brought more rain instead of snow, if Harris had chosen to stay in his tent rather than venture out with pochade box and paints — Canadian art history might have unfolded differently. But he did paint. He captured the dazzled awakening, the fresh snow glowing in clear mountain light, the improbable beauty of August turned winter.

This is the painting where Harris's mountain period began — not in monumental canvas but in spontaneous field sketch, not through philosophical meditation but through direct encounter with freak weather and transformed landscape.

**WHAT SETS ICHORPRINTS APART:**

✓ Giclee ink pigments ensure 100+ year fade resistance
✓ Colour accuracy that rivals the original masterpiece
✓ Advanced digital reproduction technique captures Harris's vigorous brushwork and thick impasto
✓ Investment-grade artwork for serious collectors
✓ All Gallery Mount Prints include Certificate of Reproduction Authenticity and artist biography affixed au verso

**ICHORPRINTS PRODUCT OPTIONS:**

**Gallery Mount** (Image: 12"x16" | Frame Exterior: 19"x23")
- Giclee Fine Art Print on archival paper
- Protected by 16"x20" glass with acrylic glaze
- 2" heavy Snow White Mount with .5" fine white/grey margins
- Choice of Burnished Gold, Bombay Mahogany, or Obsidian Black hardwood frame
- Ready to hang

**Float Frame Canvas** (Canvas: 16"x20" | Frame Exterior: 19"x23")
- Giclee pigment canvas stretched over hardwood
- Set within Obsidian Black float frame
- Creates stunning dimensional depth
- Ready to hang

**Studio Canvas** (16"x20")
- Stretched over premium hardwood bars
- Perfect minimalist presentation
- Ready to hang or custom frame
- Gallery-wrapped edges

**Loft Poster** (Image: 12"x16" | Paper: 16"x20")
- Fine Art Paper with 2" pure white margin
- Perfect for custom framing
- Affordable museum-quality option
- Ready to display

Bring home the painting born from August snow and summer storm — where a freak Rockies blizzard transformed Lawren Harris's artistic vision and launched Canadian art's most iconic mountain period.