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Robert Harris financed his first formal art studies in Boston, Massachussetts, in the early 18705 by painting portraits of prominent citizens and politicians at home in Prince Edward Island. Each commision paid him $25 to $30 - when he was able to collect it. Today several of these portraits hang in the Legislative Chamber of the Provincial Building in Charlottetown (lefi), including that of Cornelius Howatt (below right), notable as an opponent of Prince Edward Island's entry into Confederation, and Edward Whelan, a fearless journalist and opponent of the land ownership system that hobbled the development of the Island in Colonial days. Other Robert Harris paintings, as for example Comrades (below lefi), presently hanging in the Speaker's suite, are on loan to Province House from the Permanent Collection at the Confederation Centre of the Arts Gallery and Museum.