Prints
Gumming the Canoe
Gumming the Canoe
Title: Gumming the Old Canoe
Artist: Robert Harris
Publisher: The Graphic (magazine), London, UK: July 21, 1883
Image size: 8 3/4” x 11 3/4” (22.2 x 29.8 cm)
Description: Wood block print liberated from an issue of the UK Graphic - a weekly illustrated magazine, published from 1869 to 1932. The wood block was engraved by Horace Harral (1817-1905), a wood-engraver, photographer and etcher. The print is based on an original painting now in the collection of the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown, P.E.I. The engraver has taken some liberties adding a dog in the right foreground not found in the original painting.
Gumming the Canoe by Robert Harris
Robert Harris (1849-1919) was born in Wales, but moved to PEI as a youth with his family in the 1850s. Later, he studied art in Boston, London's Slade School of Art, in Paris under Léon Bonnat, and in Rome. He traveled extensively, finally settling in Montreal. Harris is perhaps best known for his portrait of the Fathers of Confederation that was commissioned to paint in 1883. 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 in Charlottetown. Harris was married, but had no children. He was the brother of the PEI architect William Critchlow Harris.