100 NHL greats, 100 portraits
Lake field native Tony Harri s’ s portraits of Top 100 NHL players of alltime unveiled in Montreal
No one could begrudge Tony Harris a vacation after completing the largest, most intense project of his career as an artist.
The Lakefield native was commissioned by the NHL in September 2016 to do portraits of the Top 100 players of all time. They were to be done for this past Saturday’ s ceremony at Montreal’ s Bell Centre recognizing the 100th anniversary of the signing of the original NHL charter at Montreal’ s Windsor Hotel.
The hotel no longer exists but the Windsor train station, which connects to the Bell Centre, does. That’s where his paintings were displayed for people coming in to see the Canadiens play the Toronto Maple Leafs. Apr e-game ceremony honoured the signing anniversary and Harris was there to take it all in.
Within 48 hours, he and his wife were on a plane to the Dominican Republic to unwind after completing the largest project of his career. Harris first made a name for himself as a golf artist before hockey became a big part of his work in the early 2000s as both sports are great passions.
There was a Peterborough connection to Harris, who now lives in Ottawa, getting the project. Growing up Harris worked with NHL executive and ex-Pete Kris King at Roger Neilson’s Hockey School.
“As everyone knows it’s six degrees of Roger Neilson in the NHL ,” Harris said .“Between Colin Campbell, Kay W hit more and Kris King, Roger’s portrait I did years ago for the Sens Foundation, for Roger’s House, is quite prevalent in the NHL office in Toronto.”
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman envisioned a painting to recognize the Top 100 NHL players, unveiled by the league in January, and Harris said that Neilson portrait helped him land the gig. Harris said the idea evolved into 100 separate 11-inch by 14-inch portraits.
Before he could begin he had to finish two months of previously contracted and time-sensitive work including portraits for Daniel Al fr eds son’ s sweater retirement and Chris Neil’ s 1,000 th NHL game. Then for about 11 months, Harris put much of his life on hold to insure he met his deadline.
“Honestly, it was like cramming twoyearsofworkintooneyear.It’s not normally the way I work,” he said. “There was a learning curve. It wasn’ t like learning a whole new job but it was, how can I maximize my time to get this one?
“You ask my wife and I think throughout this time I was still a good dad, but probably a very average husband,” he said, with a laugh .“We did things with the kids to make sure their lives weren’t turned upside down but we really didn’t socialize like we would normally do. There were a lot of nights and weekends where if I could get a full day of painting in, it was going to help us in the long run. I finished a week ahead of time. I truly enjoyed it but there were some moments where I wasn’ t sure I was going to get this done on time.”
July is when his children go to camp and it’s usually when he and his wife vacation and relax.
“I did 16 paintings in July which was crazy,” he said. “That got me on track and allowed me to get through everything.”
Harris said he envisioned the portraits as one giant painting of interchangeable pieces. He aimed for consistency and for backgrounds that flowed together. He communicated several times a week with NHL staff to pick the images he would use and jersey colours and other fine details. He said the NHL was very engaged in the process.
“Everybody was on the same page of trying to represent each player in the best light and also in a light that was recognizable to the serious hockey fan. You want eyes up. Nobody with their head down. You wanted people to look at Gordie Howe and go ‘ That’s Gordie Howe.’”
The most challenging portraits, he said, were of the players from the 1930s and earlier.
“Out of the 100 portraits there were probably five that gave me headaches,” he said.
“They were generally because the player was from the 1930s and there was one photograph of him and that photograph is (expletive deleted). If it was the only painting I was doing, I’d be confident I could do something great. But if it needed to be very similar to the other 99 I was doing, that’s where the difficulty came. I had to keep that consistency.”
In order to get started, he was given the 100 list in December, a month ahead of it being revealed.
“I was sworn to secrecy,” he said.
There were a lot of nights and weekends where if I could get a full day of painting in, it was going to help us in the long run. I finished a week ahead of time.” Tony Harris