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Franklin
Carmichael (en
Francais aussi)
1890-1945
Original Member
Carmichael,
the son of a carriage maker, was born in Orillia, Ontario
on May 4, 1890. He arrived in Toronto in 1911 with some
training in commercial art, and soon found himself the associate
of Tom Thomson and a number of other commercial artists
who were teaching themselves to be serious painters.
In
1913 he went to Paris to study painting but was soon back
in Ontario to participate in the founding of the Group of
Seven. In 1932 he was appointed Head of Graphic and Commercial
Art at the Ontario College of Art.
He
died in Toronto in 1945.
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A.J.
Casson (en
Francais aussi)
1898-1992
Member 1926
Alfred
Joseph Casson was born in Toronto on May 17, 1898, and for
more than eight decades his life was centred in Southern
Ontario.
He was a young commercial artist, assistant to Frank Carmichael,
when the Group of Seven (of which Carmichael was a member)
was finally formed. This connection helped to lead A.J.
Casson to fame.
In 1926 the Group of Seven consisted of only six, because
of the withdrawal of Frank Johnston, and the group turned
to Casson in order to re-authenticate its name.
Casson
differred from the rest of the group, not only through his
late enrollment, but also in the fact that he continued
to work as a commercial artist until the age of sixty, when
he retired as Vice President and Art Director of Samson-Mathews
in Toronto. Casson's subjects also differ somewhat from
those of the rest of the group, for he has never shown much
interest in the North Woods landscape of which the others
were so fond. His favorite subjects have consistently been
rural scenes of Southern Ontario.
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L.L.
FitzGerald (en
Francais aussi)
1890-1956
Member 1932
FitzGerald lived from 1890-1956. He was a late arrival to
the Group of Seven Artists, and was invited to become a
Member in 1932. In 1921, he was honoured by putting on a
one-man show at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. After that success,
he studied in New York, and returned to Winnipeg in 1922.
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Lawren
Harris (en
Francais aussi)
1885-1970
Original Member
Lawren
Harris was born on October 23, 1885, in Brantford, Ontario,
to a wealthy family - The Harrises of the Massey-Harris
industrial fortune.
He
took up painting at an early age and studied in Germany
from 1904 to 1907. He worked briefly with Norman Duncan,
illustrating several of Duncan's stories, but Harris was
in fact the only member of the Group of Seven who was free
all his life from monetary pressures and temptations of
commercial art and advertising designs.
Harris
is also the only member of the Group who kept pushing his
painting, never resting for long with one style or one species
of subject matter. Long after the Group disbanded, Harris
continued to grow and change as a painter, moving eventually
into art deco and pure abstraction. He
was also a talented ceramicist, and in 1922 he published
a volume of poems.
His affection for Scandinavian landscape painting was one
of the key factors in the formulation of the Group of Seven's
approach to the Ontario woods, which Harris himself painted
with gusto and attention.
It
was Harris who led the way toward painting the high Arctic,
the Rocky Mountains, Gaspe and other unique and powerful
parts of the Canadian earth.
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Edwin
Holgate (en
Francais aussi)
1892-1977
Member 1931
Mr.
Holgate lived from 1892-1977. He was a member of the group
for a brief period in 1931.
His
paintings contained some of the few nudes from the Group,
but he was careful not to make them too sexual, and would
conceal them by having a landscape in the background.
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A.Y. Jackson (en
Francais aussi)
1882-1974
Original Member
"A.Y.",
as he is fondly known, was born in Montreal on October 3,
1882.
Like
other members of the Group of Seven he was trained as a Commercial
Artist and for many years made his living by that means. He
apprenticed to a Montreal lithographer at the age of 12, and
though he later spent two and a half years in France studying
painting, he was soon back in Canada paying his rent by designing
cigar labels.
In
1920, with Lawren Harris, Arthur Lismer, Frank Carmichael,
Fred Varley, James MacDonald and Frank Johnston, he formed
the most famous exhibitors' group in the history of Canadian
painting: the Group of Seven.
In
the following years he painted the Arctic, the West Coast,
the Prairies, and the North Woods, as well as his beloved
St. Lawrence, where his countless sketching expeditions earned
him the nickname Pere Raquette- Pappa Snowshoe.
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Frank
Johnston (en
Francais aussi)
1888-1949
Original Member, only showed in the Group's first exhibit
He
painted very much differently than the others. He chose
close-up views that often seemed crowded. Other works showed
more simple landscapes, with subtleties like clouds reflecting
on water.
Photos
here appear with the permission of copyright holder Mrs.
Wenawae Stevenson.
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Arthur
Lismer (en
Francais aussi)
1885-1969
Original Member
Arthur
Lismer celebrated the powerful beauty of the Canadian landscape
in his own expressionist style. His paintings are characterized
by vivid colour, deliberately coarse brushwork and a simplified
form.
Lismer
was born in Sheffield, England. At the age of 26, he immigrated
to Canada seeking work as a commercial illustrator. It was
at the Grip Engraving Company in Toronto that he met a group
of other talented young artists and formed the Group of Seven.
Together, they organized trips to explore and sketch the wilderness
- capturing the spirit of Canada in their work, and setting
Canadian art on a bold and original new course.
Although
Lismer painted throughout his life, he devoted the majority
of his time to art education. A gifted teacher, Lismer pioneered
the field of child art education across Canada and around
the world.
Images
here appear with permission of Mrs. Bridges- copyright holder.
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J.E.H. MacDonald (en
Francais aussi)
1873-1932
Original Member
A
founding member of the Group of Seven, J.E.H. MacDonald challenged
and vastly broadened the scope of Canadian Art. MacDonald
believed that art should express the "mood and character and
spirit of the country", and he portrayed his vision in vast
panoramas using dark, rich colours and a turbulent patterned
style.
MacDonald was born in Durham, England and moved to Canada
at the age of fourteen. He trained as an artist in Hamilton
and Toronto, pursuing a career in commercial art.
In
1895 he joined the Grip Engraving Company in Toronto where
he met and encouraged other staff members, including Tom Thomson,
Frank Carmichael, Arthur Lismer and Fred Varley, to paint
with him on weekends - laying the groundwork for what would
later become Canada's famous Group of Seven.
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Tom Thomson (en
Francais aussi)
1877-1917
Died before the formation of the Group, but often included
as an Original Member
Mr.
Thomson lived from 1877-1917. He died in 1917, at one of the
places he loved most, Canoe Lake. His death occurred under
"suspicious" circumstances.
Although he died before the Group formally formed, he is almost
always included as a member of the Group of Seven.
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Frederick
Varley (en
Francais aussi)
1881-1969
Original Member
Frederick
Varley was born in 1881 in Sheffield, England. He studied
painting at Sheffield and Antwerp and went to work in London
as a commercial illustrator.
In
1912 he came to Canada, where he found himself working in
the same commercial studio as Tom Thomson. With Thomson and
the others he took to painting Northern Ontario landscapes,
and also began to do considerable work as a portrait painter.
In 1926 Varley moved to Vancouver to become Head of Drawing,
Painting & Composition at the newly formed Vancouver School
of Decorative & Applied Arts. In 1933 he founded his own school,
the B.C. College of Arts, but this venture led to his bankruptcy
in 1935. In 1938 his marriage also collapsed.
The
next years were difficult for Varley, most of them spent suffering
from alcoholism in Montreal. In 1945, however, he returned
to Toronto and slowly began to work again. He died in Toronto
in 1969.
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