Artist in Focus - Canadian Masters
These artworks celebrate the Canadian Group of Seven, or the Algonquin school, a group of landscape painters founded in 1920 which became Canada’s first internationally recognised art movement. This collection includes paintings by group members like Franklin Carmichael and JEH MacDonald, as well as artists who were integral to the movement despite being outside of the original seven such as Tom Thomson and Emily Carr. Despite mysteriously dying before the group’s formation, Thomson’s influence and impact to the group is not to be ignored, being deemed ‘part of the movement before we pinned a label on it’ by member of the seven. Carr joined the group after it’s formation but was considered ‘one of us’ by the group, her associations with which encouraged one of her most prolific periods of art.
These artists shared in common the belief that distinct Canadian art could be developed only through direct contact with the vast and unique landscape. However, each artist remained stylistically individual, the movement was more about the landscape itself than any unity to how they depicted each landscape. They painted landscapes across all four seasons, depicting barren and starkly beautiful winters, bright fiery autumns, placid fruitful springs and simple sunny summers.
The creation of the movement was in response to recent attempts to ‘beautify’, or tame, the Canadian wilderness and the Group of Seven believed they could preserve the unspoiled terrain in their art, as well as quashing stirring notions that all things European, art, nature, and way of life itself, were superior to the North American counterpart. This creation of their own uniquely Canadian art, free from the traditions and purported superiority of Europe, valuing the features of their own country, is a sentiment also celebrated on July 1st: Canada Day! Canada Day memorialised the Canadian Confederation, which was an important milestone in achieving sovereignty, becoming a ‘kingdom in its own right’ and no longer a British dominion.
Carefully curated to depict the 4 seasons, 20 of these images (the first 5 rows below) are available as a set of 11x14" prints.