Group of Seven and Tom Thomson Tom Thomson, Lawren Harris, J.E.H. Macdonald ... Et Al

In Canada, everyone grew up with and loved reproductions of paintings by the Group of Seven and Tom Thomson. These painters (all eleven of them!) defined the way Canadians saw their country. The Group was formed in 1920 and exhibited together only eight times from 1920 to 1931 before they disbanded in 1933. One member dropped out right after the first exhibition; another was added in 1926, another in 1929, and yet another in 1932, but the name, with delightful illogic, remained unchanged. 'The Group had no formal organization,' A.Y. Jackson wrote later, 'and since we had no money we had no need of a treasurer.' They never painted together as a group, and indeed on only two occasions did even four of them paint together. Their main focal points in Toronto were their studios and the Arts and Letters Club, where they regularly had lunch together. You would think that such an important art movement, which determined the course of Canadian painting for decades, would have many publications to honour and display their work. But, until now, there has not been a single volume in which a generous selection of work by each member could be seen. Out of 369 colour plates, nearly a third are reproduced here for the first time. They show the wide range of subjects that attracted the Group: landscapes from the Atlantic to the Pacific and Arctic oceans, cities, towns, villages, and farms, people, flowers, and the turmoil of the First World War. This is as large a compendium of these magnificent works as is likely to be published in our time.Silcox, David P. is the author of 'Group of Seven and Tom Thomson Tom Thomson, Lawren Harris, J.E.H. Macdonald ... Et Al' with ISBN 9781552976050 and ISBN 155297605X.