Lawren Harris Small Lake in Algoma 1920 Giclee Print | Group of Seven Art | Mongoose Lake Expedition | Canadian Autumn Landscape

Details

In fall 1920, Lawren Harris, J.E.H. MacDonald, A.Y. Jackson, and Frank Johnston returned to Mongoose Lake in Algoma — one of their "base camps" east of Batchawana where the refitted boxcar couldn't reach. They stayed in a cabin overlooking the long irregular form of Mongoose Lake itself, venturing out daily to explore the myriad smaller lakes dotting the surrounding forested hills. Jackson later described their hunting grounds in the March 1921 Canadian Forum: "From Mongoose we went in to twenty-three lakes and there were indications of others which we did not get to."

Small Lake in Algoma captures one of those twenty-three discoveries — a panoramic vista showing the vast expanse of hills and countless waters that made Algoma "a veritable paradise for the creative adventurer in paint in the Canadian North," as Harris wrote decades later. Five dark pines frame the foreground, creating natural gateway through which the viewer's eye travels across sinuous lines of a small body of water below, past islands and outcrops illuminated by sunlight, toward green slopes crowned by orange and gold autumnal foliage, and finally to more distant hills outlined in blue on the horizon.

The composition demonstrates Harris's evolving approach to landscape painting. This is not the decorative winter scenes of his Scandinavian-influenced period, nor yet the stark simplification of his coming Lake Superior work. This is Harris discovering panoramic perspective — learning to organize "range on range of forested hills, red and gold with maple and birch, or dark with patches of spruce and pine; here and there the sheen of small lakes" into coherent pictorial structure that conveys both vastness and intimacy.

Jackson described their daily routine in his Canadian Forum article: "The morning mists are slowly dispersing round Mongoose Lake as we start off on the day's hunting. Being individualists, we mostly go different ways. As there are no roads we can go anywhere." Each artist carried marmalade sandwich in haversack, struck out alone through trackless bush, and returned at day's end with sketches documenting their discoveries. MacDonald favoured Bald Rock for its commanding outlook. Harris sought beaver lakes with "wondrous compositions if one can untangle and sequester them, for this north country has problems that are not explained in the sketching manuals."

Those problems fascinated Harris. How to capture multiple receding planes of hills without losing clarity? How to render countless individual trees as coherent forest masses? How to suggest depth across miles of wilderness while maintaining decorative surface appeal? Small Lake in Algoma addresses these challenges through careful orchestration of colour temperature and tonal values. Dark firs anchor foreground in deep greens almost approaching black. Middle-ground waters catch sunlight in pale blues and whites. The green slopes provide transitional zone. The orange autumnal foliage creates warm accent. The distant blue hills dissolve into atmospheric perspective.

This was painted during the period of maximum Group of Seven cohesion. Their historic first exhibition had opened at the Art Gallery of Toronto in May 1920 — just months before this fall painting trip. Harris had written the exhibition statement declaring: "The group of seven artists whose pictures are here exhibited have for several years held a like vision concerning art in Canada. They are all imbued with the idea that an art must grow and flower in the land before the country will be a real home for its people."

The Mongoose Lake expedition of September-October 1920 put that vision into practice. Four founding Group members working simultaneously in the same territory, sharing discoveries, refining techniques, producing the "sketches and pictures" that would populate subsequent exhibitions. The camaraderie and productive energy of these trips proved formative. Artists who might have drifted toward individual styles or scattered across different painting grounds instead forged collective identity through shared wilderness experiences.

Harris exhibited Small Lake in Algoma at the Art Gallery of Toronto in October 1921 as part of the Ontario Society of Artists exhibition, priced at $50. The modest price reflected the work's status as oil sketch rather than finished canvas, but the compositional sophistication suggests Harris recognized its significance. This sketch solved problems. It demonstrated that Algoma's complex topography could be organized into compelling pictorial structure. It proved panoramic perspective compatible with decorative colour sense.

The painting documents specific historical moment. This is fall 1920 — after the Group's successful first exhibition validated their approach, but before Lake Superior's revelation would shift Harris's direction toward austere simplification. The Algoma expeditions between 1918 and 1921 represented Group of Seven's genesis period, when shared experience in wilderness created bonds and methods that would define Canadian landscape painting for generations.

Mongoose Lake itself became legendary. MacDonald produced explosively coloured sketches there, pushing his accomplished technique to new heights with rapid brushwork freezing the vivid colours of Algoma's woods and hills. Jackson found beaver lakes requiring careful untangling of complex compositions. Harris discovered panoramic vistas demanding sophisticated spatial organization. Johnston contributed his own interpretations to the collective visual vocabulary emerging from these expeditions.

The logistics speak to the artists' determination. Getting to Mongoose Lake required leaving the boxcar at its railway siding, then travelling overland with all painting equipment to reach the cabin. Once there, artists ventured out on foot through roadless wilderness, sometimes hiking miles to reach particular viewpoints. They painted regardless of weather, carrying sketches back to cabin for evaluation and discussion. The process was physically demanding, intellectually rigorous, and artistically productive beyond any previous Canadian painting campaign.

Small Lake in Algoma shows Harris at height of his Algoma period powers. He had mastered the rich, bright colours and decorative compositional motifs that characterized his work from 1918-1920. He could organize complex wilderness topography into readable pictorial space. He balanced naturalistic observation with decorative patterning. The five framing pines provide structural rhythm. The water's sinuous lines create visual movement. The layered hills establish depth. The autumnal colours offer chromatic pleasure without overwhelming the composition's architectural logic.

Within a year, Harris would venture beyond Algoma to Lake Superior's North Shore, where starkness and bareness of landscape would correspond perfectly with the direction his paintings were moving. The simplified forms, reduced palette, and monumental emptiness of his Superior work would eclipse the rich colours and decorative complexity of Algoma paintings. But in fall 1920, Harris had not yet made that discovery. He was still exploring Algoma's possibilities, still finding new lakes among the twenty-three they counted from Mongoose, still painting wilderness that felt simultaneously vast and intimate, wild and paintable, challenging and endlessly rewarding.

The painting preserves that transitional moment — Harris between decorative exuberance and austere simplification, the Group of Seven between formation and maturity, Canadian landscape painting between imported European techniques and distinctly national visual language. It documents an artist discovering what panoramic perspective could accomplish, a painter learning to organize vast wilderness into compelling pictorial structure, and a movement proving that Canadian landscape could sustain ambitious artistic treatment.

This is Harris on autumn morning in Algoma, standing before unnamed lake among the twenty-three they found from Mongoose, painting through five framing pines toward distant hills outlined in blue, capturing the moment when wilderness vista became Canadian art.

**WHAT SETS ICHORPRINTS APART:**

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✓ All Gallery Mount Prints include Certificate of Reproduction Authenticity and artist biography affixed au verso

**ICHORPRINTS PRODUCT OPTIONS:**

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**Loft Poster** (Image: 12"x16" | Paper: 16"x20")
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Bring home the painting from one of twenty-three lakes discovered from Mongoose — where Lawren Harris framed panoramic wilderness through five dark pines and captured Algoma's vast expanse in fall 1920