Painting Canada: Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven

Dulwich Picture Gallery's (London, United Kingdom) Bicentenary year continues with Painting Canada: Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven. The exhibition forms part of Dulwich Picture Gallery's North American series showcasing the work of artists rarely seen in the UK. Painting Canada features some of Canada’s most iconic landscape paintings.

Tom Thomson and J. E. H. MacDonald, Arthur Lismer, Frederick Varley, Frank Johnston and Franklin Carmichael met as employees of the design fi rm Grip Ltd. in Toronto. The other two members of the Group were A. Y. (Alexander Young) Jackson from Montreal and Lawren Harris, effectively the Group's leader, and a man of considerable personal wealth. They often met at the Arts and Letters Club of Toronto to discuss their opinions and share their art.

The progress of this informal group of artists was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I and a further severe blow came in 1917 when Thomson died while canoeing in Algonquin Park
Thomson's seven artist friends reunited after the war. They continued to travel throughout Canada, sketching the landscape and developing techniques to represent such wild and diverse terrain in their art.

In 1920 they finally came together as the Group of Seven and held their first exhibition under that name. As the decade progressed the Group came to be recognised as pioneers of a new, Canadian, school of art. Nowadays, the Group and Tom Thomson are iconic in their native country; every schoolchild is familiar with masterpieces such as Thomson’s The Jack Pine, arguably the most famous and beloved painting in Canada.

Date: until January 8.
Location: Dulwich Gallery. Gallery Road, Dulwich. London. SE21 7AD. United Kingdom.
Opening hours: from Tuesday to Friday from 10am to 5pm. Saturdays and Sundays from 11am to 5pm.

See some of the works in the following slideshow: