Prints
Trees - Elaine Harrison
Trees - Elaine Harrison
Title: Trees (c1979)
Artist: Elaine Harrison
Image Size: 7 3/4” x 5 1/4” (19.7 x 13.3 cm)
Description: Block print on paper card. Initialed in pencil by Harrison at bottom right. Also, signed with an inscription from "Eleanor & Elaine" on the reverse.
Eleanor Ressor Wheler (1900-1996) was born in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. She studied nursing and received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Toronto. In 1945, she moved to Prince Edward Island and worked as a public health nurse. Eleanor lived with her companion, artist Elaine Russel Harrison, in Bedeque and at their summer home “Windswept” in Fernwood.
laine 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.