William Blair Bruce was one of a number of Canadian artists in the late nineteenth century who travelled to Paris for their art education. He studied at the Academie Julian under Adolphe William Bougereau and Tony Robert-Fleury, returning to Canada only for visits. Though he lived in France at the height of Impressionism’s popularity, he had no direct contact with its primary practitioners and adopted the visual language from lesser known artists. He achieved a certain amount of success in Paris, exhibiting at the Salon in 1884. Bruce was a firm believer in the importance of working directly from nature and spent time in artist’s settlements in Barbizon and Giverny. His work, as demonstrated in Harvest Time, is characterized by a light-filled palette and rapidly applied short brushstrokes. In 1888, Bruce married Swedish artist Caroline Benedicks and they moved to Sweden where he died in 1906.