COMMENT


“Many of (Elaine) Harrison’s portraits and self-portraits employ a head-and-shoulders format. Her focus directs us to the face, often to slightly oversized eyes, sometimes averted sometimes engaging. The expressive black outlines are used successfully and skillfully in (her) figurative work.” - Kevin Rice, former director of the Confederation Centre Art Gallery in Charlottetown, P.E.I.

BIOGRAPHY


Elaine Russell Harrison (1915-2003) graduated from Dalhousie University in 1937 with a Bachelor of Arts with distinction in Latin and English. She moved to Prince Edward Island with her family when her father, the late Archdeacon G. R. Harrison, became Rector of St. Mary's Anglican Church in Summerside and St. John's Church in St. Eleanor's. Elaine began her 30-year teaching career in Summerside in 1939. She spent many years teaching English and Latin at Summerside High School and, for a few years, taught geometry, German, and art. Carrying on the tradition of women artists throughout the century, Harrison was an inspired teacher, believing that education was not a means to an end, but a way of life. Education was not simply about facts and figures but also included nurturing the creative mind. She was a self-taught artist, "reading all kinds of books about art and studying the works of all kinds of artists". She was drawn to the work of the modern masters: Van Gogh, Picasso, Kandinsky, Rouault, Tom Thomson, and Emily Carr, to name a few. Expressionistic artists who seek an emotional or spiritual truth, something beyond straight realism, touch her poet's soul. Throughout her teaching career, Harrison painted and was an active member of the P.E.I. Art Society and the Great George Street Gallery. Following her retirement from teaching in 1968, Harrison devoted her extraordinary energy to painting, writing, and environmental activism. Harrison's influential work as a teacher has been publicly acknowledged. In 1997, she received an honorary degree from the University of Prince Edward Island. The Dr. Elaine Harrison Award at U.P.E.I. was established through the Estate of Elaine Harrison following her death in 2003. The award is granted to a second-, third-, or fourth-year full-time student who is talented and working toward an Arts or Music degree, and has a demonstrated financial need. A retrospective exhibition entitled, Elaine Harrison: I Am an Island That Dreams, was held at the Art Gallery of the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown in 2011/12.