Steve Martin curates Lawren Harris exhibit at the AGO
Comedian is so passionate about the Group of Seven icon he agreed to curate a show
Comedian Steve Martin has been an art lover and collector of fine art for decades. Now he'sco-curator of an exhibition at the ArtGallery ofOntariotitledThe Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris, featuring more than 30major paintings by the revered Canadian painter and co-founder ofthe Group of Seven.
"I always thought it was going to be a big hit," Martin said ofthe exhibition.
"I've always felt, just wait 'till they see these paintings all in one room."
Canada through an American lens
Group of Seven paintings are front and centre in thehearts and minds of Canadiansfor their representationof the country'sruggednorthern landscape and for thesense of nationalidentity they imbue.
Butthe showing at the Hammer Museum markedthe first major exhibition ofHarrisworksin the United States. That show includedsome of his most significant paintings.
As Martin tells it, "I do own a couple of small panels that I bought through the years that I just really like. In fact, that's how this whole thing got started.Ihad a small panel hanging in our house and Annie Philbin was over, and she said, 'Who's that?' And I said 'Don't get me started,'and here we are."
'I thought I discovered him'
Martin finally agreed to take on the project, hopingtomakeHarrisas famous in the U.S. as the Canadian iconis at home.
"I thought I discovered him, then I realized Canada knows all about him," Martin toldCBC'sWendyMesleyin an exclusive televisioninterview earlier this month.
"I felt a little foolish. I thought he was unknown."
The fact that few Americans seemed aware of Harris's work, while Martinhadadored himfor decades, finallyspurred the comedian on to take on the job as curator.
Over a period of several years, Martin travelledacross Canada to choose the right pieces for his exhibition.
Abstract idealized images of Canada
Martin said he first saw Canada's North when he went to the Yukon on afilm shoot. There, thelandscape reminded him of aHarris painting.
"I washelicopteredto the location and would fly through these mountains.I thought:`This isLawrenHarris,'" he toldMesley.
"Oftentimes,you know, a painter will paint a landscape and you think, 'That's not really what it looks like.' And then when you actually go see the landscape, you go, 'Oh, I see.He actually did paint it exactly like it is.'"
While the Hammer Museum's version of the showprovided an initial introduction to Harris'smasterworks for an American audience, in Boston, his paintings wereshown alongsideAmerican abstract artists.
"In Boston, we were able to bring Harris together with the important early American artists like Georgia O'Keeffe and Marsden Hartley," Huntersaid during Tuesday's chat.
"And the work really held up, really strongly."
Martin also discussed the progression of Harris's oeuvre from realism to abstractionismover time.
"If you look at Harris's work you will see paintings of specific places.He's looking at the scene and painting it or maybe doing a drawing and taking it back to the studio. Butthen later, you see formal pictureslike Isolation Peak,which are non-existent places that he's composing. Andthen you see a painting like the Imperial Oil picture and it's just theory," Martin said.
"It's like the theory of a mountain and that's where the Idea of North comes from."
Thosesparse, austere, emptynorthern landscapes have helped shapeCanada's sense of identity, even as the majority of Canadians today live in cities far to the south.
Updated for Canadian audiences
Harris's"bold vision of the North, the one that so many people love, really comes out of this place," according to the AGO's Hunter.
Artistic contemporaries
The expanded exhibition in Toronto also includeshistorical work of several photographers,Harris contemporaries who also documented the Wardin Toronto in the early 1900s.
"It was a tough, emerging modern city that was really hard on working people and really hard on newcomers,"Hunter said.
"Harris dealt with that in his work. Hewrote about it in his poetry. He spoke quite openly about being troubled by the human conditionthat he saw.
Beyond Harris
The Toronto exhibition also features work by several contemporary Canadian artists, including four commissions, that further explore the idea of the Canadian identity and landscape.
Landscape on film
The exhibition'sprologue and epilogue servepartly as a critique of Harris,but also a critique of Canada and thestories that we've consistently told, said Hunter.
"I think the challenge for Harris is that in choosing that path for veryparticularreasons, it also opens him to criticism for,in asense, that kind of cleansingor erasurethat happens in hiswork [and]can also be seen as an ignoring of a wider culture."
Idealized vision of Canada
Hunter offers a final perspective on the enduring contribution Harris made in shaping our idea of Canada.
"Harris was very successful in the teens and 20s in supporting an argumentfor a Canadian art, a very nationalist perspective," he said.
"That really stuck. And that stuck even at the point later when Harrismoves off into producing many of the works that you see in this exhibition, which are about something more spiritual and more transcendant."
Watch WendyMesley'sfull interview with Steve Martin on The National onThursday June30at9 p.m. ETon CBC News Network,10 p.m. ETon CBC Television (10:30NT) or online atCBC.ca/thenational.
The Idea of North: The Paintings ofLawrenHarrisis on display at the AGOJuly 1 to Sept. 18.