Robert Harris (painter)
Encyclopedia
Robert Harris was a Welsh
Welsh people
The Welsh people are an ethnic group and nation associated with Wales and the Welsh language.John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the Roman departure from Britain, although Brythonic Celtic languages seem to have...

-born Canadian painter most noted for his portrait of the Fathers of Confederation
Fathers of Confederation
The Fathers of Confederation are the people who attended the Charlottetown and Quebec Conferences in 1864 and the London Conference of 1866 in England, preceding Canadian Confederation. The following lists the participants in the Charlottetown, Quebec, and London Conferences and their attendance at...

.

Born in Ty'n y Groes, Conwy
Conwy
Conwy is a walled market town and community in Conwy County Borough on the north coast of Wales. The town, which faces Deganwy across the River Conwy, formerly lay in Gwynedd and prior to that in Caernarfonshire. Conwy has a population of 14,208...

, Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

, he came to Prince Edward Island
Prince Edward Island
Prince Edward Island is a Canadian province consisting of an island of the same name, as well as other islands. The maritime province is the smallest in the nation in both land area and population...

 via Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

 with his family as a youth. He later studied art in Boston, London's Slade School of Art, in Paris under Léon Bonnat
Léon Bonnat
Léon Joseph Florentin Bonnat was a French painter.He was born in Bayonne, but from 1846 to 1853 he lived in Madrid, where his father owned a bookshop. While tending his father's shop, he copied engravings of works by the Old Masters, developing a passion for drawing...

, and in Rome. He traveled extensively, finally settling in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

.

His commission to paint the Fathers of Confederation came early in his career - 1883 - 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
Black Donnellys
The Black Donnellys is the common nickname of the Donnelly family who emigrated from County Tipperary, Ireland, to Canada in about 1845–1846, and who participated in a notorious feud in Biddulph Township in Middlesex County, Ontario, which culminated in a massacre in which five family members were...

 for the Toronto Globe. He was a founding member of the Royal Canadian Academy (RCA) and elected president of the RCA in 1893. An important collection of his works is housed at the Confederation Centre of the Arts
Confederation Centre of the Arts
The Confederation Centre of the Arts is a cultural centre dedicated to the visual and performing arts located in the city of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada.-History:...

 in Charlottetown
Charlottetown
Charlottetown is a Canadian city. It is both the largest city on and the provincial capital of Prince Edward Island, and the county seat of Queens County. Named after Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III, Charlottetown was first incorporated as a town in 1855 and designated as a city in 1885...

.

His painting, A Meeting of the School Trustees illustrating a confrontation between PEI teacher Kate Henderson
Kate Henderson
Kate Henderson was a Canadian pioneer in education.Henderson was a teacher in a one-room school in Long Creek, Prince Edward Island in the 1880s. Around August 1885, she was contacted by PEI painter Robert Harris. Henderson told Harris of a confrontation she had had with local school trustees...

 and her school's trustees appeared on a Canadian stamp in 1980 and was dramatised by a Heritage Minute
Heritage Minute
Heritage Minutes, also known officially as Historica Minutes: History by the Minute, are sixty-second short films, each illustrating an important moment in Canadian history. They appear frequently on Canadian television and in cinemas before movies...

.

He was married but had no children. He was the brother of the architect William Critchlow Harris
William Critchlow Harris
William Critchlow Harris was an architect noted mainly for his ecclesiastical and domestic projects in Maritime Canada....

.

External links


Further reading

  • Moncrieff Williamson, Robert Harris: An Unconventional Biography, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1973.


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