Chemistry researchers and scientists will play art detective this week as they test an original Group of Seven painting against a possible one as part of the 97th Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition.
The conference, hosted by Simon Fraser University, is in Vancouver for the first time since 2002.
ProSpect Scientific will hold a real-time test on Tuesday that will compare Lawren Harris’ Hurdy Gurdy against another piece dubbed Autumn Harbour that was found more than a decade ago in an antique shop in Bala, Ont., an area Harris was known to visit.
The test uses Raman spectroscopy, which uses a laser to analyse changes in materials of the paint. It will be able to tell in a matter of minutes if the painting could indeed be a long-lost Harris painting.
Lawren Harris’‚ Hurdy Gurdy, a depiction of Toronto’s Ward district is shown in this handout image.
Hurdy Gurdy, a depiction of daily life in Toronto’s Ward district, was painted by Harris in 1913 and sold at a November 2012 auction for $1,082,250.
“If someone painted it 10 or 20 years ago, you can’t tell that just by looking at it but it will be immediately obvious using this technology,” said Daniel Leznoff, a professor of chemistry at SFU and the scientific program chair for the conference.
The SFU Chemistry department has been planning the five-day exhibition for the better part of two years, arranging speakers and topics.
This year is the first to feature an international symposia, where researchers from Canada and an international delegation from China, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Switzerland, France or the United States will team up to give talks.
Leznoff says he hopes the conference will help raise awareness about the importance of chemistry in the modern world.
SFU chemistry professor Daniel Leznoff at the Vancouver Convention Centre on Sunday.
“People in the public tend to give chemistry a bad rap,” he said. “But the fact is, you take chemistry out of society you lose most of modern society.”
The conference will also feature Shankar Balasubramanian, a scientist from Cambridge University, who co-invented a process called Solexa Sequencing. The sequencing has become a way of inexpensive, accurate genome testing.
The conference runs from Sunday to Thursday evening.
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