Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven
May 14 to August 1, 2008
The exhibition Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven brought together for the first time 45 works by Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven selected from the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre and University of Guelph art collections, highlighting some of their most iconic images of the Canadian landscape. The exhibition featured Tom Thomson’s The Drive (circa 1916) and Lawren S.
Harris’ Morning Light, Lake Superior (circa 1927), which have recently been returned to Guelph from Rideau Hall (Ottawa) where they were on extended loan and prominently displayed at the official residence of Canada’s Governor General. Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven celebrated our collections and our community, paying tribute to the legacy of our landscape through the painters who rendered it indelible in the history of Canadian painting.
The founding members of the Group of Seven were Franklin Carmichael, Lawren S. Harris, A. Y. Jackson, Frank Johnston, Arthur Lismer, J. E. H. MacDonald, and Frederick Varley. Tom Thomson, closely associated with the Group of Seven, was not an official member due to his untimely death in 1917. The group, including Thomson, met as employees of the design firm Grip Ltd. (Toronto) and at the Arts and Letters Club (Toronto) to discuss their opinions and share their work. They were temporarily split up during World War I, during which time Jackson and Varley became official war artists. Reuniting after the war, the Group of Seven traveled throughout Ontario, sketching the land and developing techniques to best represent the natural environment in their art.
The Group of Seven was officially formed in 1919, holding their first exhibition in 1920. Frank Johnston left the group in 1921 and was replaced in 1926 by A. J. Casson. In the early 1930s, Edwin Holgate and Lionel LeMoine Fitzgerald joined the group. Deriving their aesthetic from the French symbolists and post-impressionists, the group sought to achieve an autonomous relationship between art and nature beyond the constraints of naturalism. They positioned their work within an expressionist approach, imbuing their subjects with emotive qualities.
The exhibition, Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven, featureed the best examples of their work in the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre and University of Guelph collections.
Images:
Left: Tom Thomson, The Drive, circa 1916 (oil on canvas)
Ontario Agricultural College purchase with funds raised by students, faculty, and staff, 1926, University of Guelph Collection
Centre: Lawren Harris, Pines, Kempenfelt Bay, 1923-1925 (oil on canvas)
Macdonald Institute Purchase, 1953, University of Guelph Collection
Right: A. J. Casson, Ontario Village, Spring, not dated (oil on board)
Macdonald Institute Purchase, 1953/4, University of Guelph Collection