Roald Nasgaard

A tribute to the Canadian North, a meditation on artistic creation, and a window onto the ideological musings of Canada’s greatest Structurist artist.In celebration of his 100th birthday, Eli Bornstein, in collaboration with author and curator Roald Nasgaard, has published a stunning work of personal reflection on a most transformative time in his life and career. Eli Bornstein: Arctic Journals, 1986 and 1987 is a tribute to the Canadian North, a meditation on artistic creation, and a window onto the ideological musings of Canada’s greatest Structurist artist.Devoid of the mythologizing other artists have given their writing on the North, Bornstein’s journals are introspective, insightful, and sometimes funny. Comprised of personal journal entries from two northern trips he took with photographer Hans Dommasch—along with watercolour studies, Structurist reliefs, and a personal collection of poems—Bornstein’s work is a vital reminder of our outsized influence over the natural world and an invitation to recognize our need for nature in our life and in our art.Bornstein's publication is the culmination of a life’s work on reconciling himself with nature and the understanding our very existence.

Lawren S. Harris is best known for his iconic landscape paintings that declare a sense of cool Canadian resilience. Yet, in the 1920s, an audacious and more colourful interior world began to emerge in his work, and by 1934, the patriotic landscape painter had taken a seemingly unexpected turn toward a transnational career in abstract painting. The social, intellectual, and aesthetic milieu of American transcendentalism shaped a movement of abstract art across North America, seen in the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, Katherine Dreier, Raymond Jonson, and Lawren Harris. Harris, in particular, made an impact on both sides of the border. Inspired by the ideas of Kandinsky and informed by the writings of Emerson and Whitman, Harris and his contemporaries turned to abstraction to express higher states of consciousness, creating work that was the very embodiment of the modern spirit. As Harris's career progressed, as he ascended from mountaintops to inner states of mind, he sought greater and more ethereal spiritual heights. This magnificent volume features reproductions of more than 75 paintings by Harris and his contemporaries. Two major essays by Roald Nasgaard and Gwendolyn Owens investigate Lawren Harris's exploration of modernity and the evolution of his work towards a form of abstraction that enthusiastically embraced the energies of the ambient visual culture. Higher States: Lawren Harris and His American Contemporaries accompanied an exhibition organized by the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.

Lawren S. Harris doit sa renommée à ses paysages emblématiques pénétrés d'un force tranquille résolument canadienne. Dans les années 1920, un monde intérieur audacieux et coloré commence à se manifester dans son œuvre, et en 1934, contre toute attente, il entreprend une carrière de peintre abstrait outre-frontière.Le milieu social, intellectuel et esthétique du transcendantalisme américain sert de modèle à un mouvement d'art abstrait en Amérique du Nord. Inspirés par les idées de Kandinsky et les écrits d'Emerson et Whitman, Harris et ses contemporains américains — Georgia O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, Katherine Dreier et Raymond Jonson — se tournent vers l'abstraction pour exprimer des états de conscience plus élevés.Aspirant à s'élever au-dessus des choses terrestres, Harris délaisse le paysage au profit du spirituel et de l'intériorité. Ce magnifique ouvrage reproduit plus de 75 peintures réalisées par Harris et ses contemporains. Les essais de Roald Nasgaard et Gwendolyn Owens analysent l'exploration de la modernité chez Lawren Harris et l'évolution de son œuvre vers une abstraction qui se nourrit du dynamisme de la culture visuelle ambiante.Vers de nouveaux sommets : Lawren Harris et ses contemporains américains accompagne une exposition organisée par la Collection McMichael d'art canadien qui prendra l'affiche en février 2017. L'exposition sera présentée également au Musée Glenbow, à Calgary, dans le cadre d'une tournée canadienne.