Lars Jonson Haukaness

Lars Jonson Haukaness, painter, art educator (b at Folkedal, Norway 1862; d at Lake Louise, Alta 4 Sept 1929). Haukaness studied in Kristiania [Oslo] at the Royal Academy of Art (1882-85). He immigrated to the US in 1888, exhibiting at the Chicago Art Museum (1894) and establishing himself as portrait painter in Madison. He returned to Norway 1909-13 and then exhibited 44 canvases in Chicago and Madison (1913). In 1920 he moved to Winnipeg where he exhibited at the Winnipeg Art Gallery (1920) and taught at Winnipeg School of Art (1920-24), and was a friend of LeMoine FITZGERALD and Franz JOHNSTON. In 1923 he was awarded a $50 prize at the Chicago-Norwegian Exhibition for March Thaw. He moved to Calgary in 1926 and began evening art classes at the Provincial Institute of Technology and Art (later the Alberta College of Art). In the fall of 1927, Haukaness taught the first day classes in fine art. He was the first teacher of Maxwell BATES and W.L. Stevenson. Haukaness was an impressionist painter particularly interested in mountain landscape, and he regularly spent summers alone in the Rockies painting. He died of a heart attack while on such a painting trip. A large memorial exhibition was held in Calgary in 1931.

Author HELEN COLLINSON