Prints
Flowers - Elaine Harrison
Flowers - Elaine Harrison
Title: Flowers (1989)
Artist: Elaine Harrison
Image Size: 5” x 3 3/4” (12.7 x 9.5 cm)
Description: Color block print on paper. Tipped onto a note card. When closed, the note card measures 7” x 5” (17.8 x 12.7 cm). Signed in ink by Harrison and dated ('89) at bottom right. Harrison inscribed the interior of the note card to Sally.
Sally Blake Hooff was born in Scotland. She earned an arts degree from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Sally also studied at the Nova Scotia School of Art and Design, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. She taught art in Halifax, Ottawa and Montreal. She was co-founder and co-ordinator of “Arts Westmount,” an annual festival of all the arts in Montreal. She was co-author, illustrator and publisher of “Montreal's Little Mountain / La Petite Montagne” (an architectural history) 1979; new edition by Optimum, 1985. She established and ran the Princetown Gallery, Malpeque, Prince Edward Island from 1985 to 1993. Sally has received numerous awards including the Nova Scotia Talent Trust Scholarship for study in Montreal, the Bronfman Family Foundation Grant for publishing (1979), and Prince Edward Island Arts Council Grants (1986 & 1991). She has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows. She is the only daughter of the noted Scottish writer, author and editor, George Blake (1893-1961).
Elaine Harrison (1915-2003) spent most of her working life as a teacher in Summerside. Although she was with the PEI Art Society in the 1950s, it wasn’t until her retirement from teaching in 1968 that she devoted most of her time to writing, and painting. She was inspired by the work of the Group of Seven and iconic artists such as Tom Thomson and Emily Carr. Over time, Harrison’s painting style evolved. In later years, she rarely used brushes, preferring to apply paint with a pallet knife. Harrison's works are vigorous, direct, colourful, abstracted impressions of her favourite subjects: the red cliffs and shorelines near her summer home in Fernwood; the stands of hardwood trees near her home in Bedeque, PEI; Island harbours; and her many cats. A retrospective exhibition entitled, Elaine Harrison: I Am an Island That Dreams, was held in the Art Gallery of the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown in 2011/12.