User:Dresserdrawer

Clara Isabella Harris (1887-1974) was a Canadian impressionist painter.

Clara Isabella Perry was born in King City, Ontario on October 12, 1887. She attended the Ontario School of Art (OCA) where she studied under Group of Seven's John W. Beatty as well as noted portrait painter Archibald Barnes for several years. She attended the Port Hope Summer School where she was a student of George Agnew Reid, Manly MacDonald and William Cruikshank.

She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago during the First World War. Back in Toronto she exhibited at various art shows including the Sixty-First Annual Exhibition of the Ontario Society of Artists, March 1933; The Artists' Annual Non-Jury Exhibition, Canadian National Exhibition Art Gallery, Toronto, May 1-15, 1935; the 71st Annual Spring Exhibition, and the Ontario Society of Artists at the Art Gallery of Toronto, March 5-29, 1943.

On October 3, 1987, at the Kaspar Gallery Clara exhibited alongside Emily Carr, Paraskeva Clark, Kathleen Daly, Dorothy Knowles, Kathleen Morris, Mary H. Reid and Anne Savage amongst others.

She married Frederick W. Harris, a draughtsman-artist. They lived in the Baby Point area in the west end of Toronto at 23 Valley View Gardens. They shared their love of art as they traveled through Ontario, the Maritimes and New England. True to the Group of Seven's "plein air" philosophy of painting Clara and Fred painted on location in every season. Their sketches, paintings, woodcuts, greeting cards and correspondence are tribute to this.

Clara was a prolific artist working mainly in oils but she did complete some watercolors. She captured the Canadian landscape with her scenes of barns, farmhouses, and seasonal activities. She also did the occasional portrait.