Photos: Steve Martin showcases Lawren Harris exhibition at Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario

Photos by: Jaime Espinoza –

Writer, musician, actor, comedian, screenwriter and playwright, Steve Martin joined AGO Curator Andrew Hunter in conversation yesterday afternoon and explored the iconic paintings of Lawren S. Harris, his influence on 20th century art and the process of putting together the upcoming exhibition, The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris. The exhibition celebrates Harris as a leading modernist painter, an innovator on par with contemporaries Marsden Hartley, Edward Hopper, and Georgia O’Keeffe. At the core of this exhibition are more than 30 of Harris’s most significant northern landscapes from the 1920s and 1930s, drawn from major public and private collections across Canada.

The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris opens at the Art Gallery of Ontario on Friday, July 1, 2016, and is curated by Steve Martin in collaboration with Cynthia Burlingham, Deputy Director, Curatorial Affairs at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles and Andrew Hunter, Fredrik S. Eaton Curator, Canadian Art, AGO.

Comedian and actor Steve Martin in conversation with Art Gallery of Ontario curator Andrew Hunter to present The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris in Toronto on June 28, 2016. (Photo: Jaime Espinoza/Aesthetic Magazine)

Comedian and actor Steve Martin in conversation with Art Gallery of Ontario curator Andrew Hunter to present The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris in Toronto on June 28, 2016. (Photo: Jaime Espinoza/Aesthetic Magazine)

Comedian and actor Steve Martin in conversation with Art Gallery of Ontario curator Andrew Hunter to present The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris in Toronto on June 28, 2016. (Photo: Jaime Espinoza/Aesthetic Magazine)

Comedian and actor Steve Martin in conversation with Art Gallery of Ontario curator Andrew Hunter to present The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris in Toronto on June 28, 2016. (Photo: Jaime Espinoza/Aesthetic Magazine)

Comedian and actor Steve Martin in conversation with Art Gallery of Ontario curator Andrew Hunter to present The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris in Toronto on June 28, 2016. (Photo: Jaime Espinoza/Aesthetic Magazine)

Comedian and actor Steve Martin in conversation with Art Gallery of Ontario curator Andrew Hunter to present The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris in Toronto on June 28, 2016. (Photo: Jaime Espinoza/Aesthetic Magazine)

Comedian and actor Steve Martin in conversation with Art Gallery of Ontario curator Andrew Hunter to present The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris in Toronto on June 28, 2016. (Photo: Jaime Espinoza/Aesthetic Magazine)

Comedian and actor Steve Martin in conversation with Art Gallery of Ontario curator Andrew Hunter to present The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris in Toronto on June 28, 2016. (Photo: Jaime Espinoza/Aesthetic Magazine)

Comedian and actor Steve Martin in conversation with Art Gallery of Ontario curator Andrew Hunter to present The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris in Toronto on June 28, 2016. (Photo: Jaime Espinoza/Aesthetic Magazine)