Throughout history forests and trees have been places of refuge and retreats from the world where one goes to renew one’s self. There is also a sense of steadfastness that comes from tall tress that will stand the storms that will circle around them. – Sotheby’s catalog

Lawren Harris’s painting, Algonquin Birches, will be offered at Sotheby’s sale of Important Canadian Art on November 23, 2010. It is estimated that Harris, one of the Group of Seven, probably painted this work around 1914 in Algonquin Park about 137 miles north of Toronto, Canada. His color palette of sky blue, mustard yellow, white, purple, dark green and red is stunning.

The birches in Harris’ painting remind me of the smaller and less sturdy aspens that I photographed on a drive through Independence Pass en route to Aspen, Colorado.