Robert Harris

Robert Harris (September 18, 1849 – February 27, 1919) was a Welsh-born Canadian painter, most noted for his portrait of the Fathers of Confederation. Early life Born in Caerhun, Conwy, Wales, Robert Harris grew up on his father’s farm before moving to Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island in 1856. Encouraged by his mother, he developed an interest in art, and to practice drawing, he often sketched images from magazines. In 1867, he travelled to Liverpool, where he independently studied and sketched from the plaster casts in the local museum, learning human anatomy and proportion. Already skilled in portraiture, and receiving commissions, he decided to pursue formal instruction in 1873 in Boston at the Lowell Institute, in London at the Slade School of Art with Alphonse Legros (1877) and at the Heatherly School of Fine Art (1877), and, finally in Paris with Léon Bonnat at the Atelier Bonnat later that same year. In 1880, he was commissioned to sketch the principal parties in the Donnelleys' murder trial for the Toronto Globe. He returned to study in Paris with Bonnat again in 1881. In 1882, he shared a studio with American painter A. B. Reinhardt at Ecouen, 17 miles from Paris. In 1883, he exhibited at the Paris Salon. While abroad, he may have learned of Impressionism. On his return to Canada, in 1883, he was commissioned by the Dominion Government to paint a record of the 1864 Quebec Conference. The painting was later known by the popular title The Fathers of Confederation. Afterwards, he settled in Montreal, and began painting in an academic style the social and political elite in Toronto and Montreal.