Tom Thomson (1877-1917)

• painter, who inspired the landscapists known as the Group of Seven
• born in Claremont, Ontario
• died Canoe Lake, Ontario
• grew up in a large western Ontario farm family
• in his twenties he tried a variety of jobs
• moved to Seattle, Washington, where he worked as a photo-engraver
• moved to Toronto in 1905, and within a few years took a job at the design firm Grip Limited, where he met J.E.H. MacDonald, with whom he started going on weekend sketching trips to nearby lakes
• made his first trip to Algonquin Park, Ontario, in the summer of 1912
• spent the summers from 1913 to 1917 as a ranger in Algonquin Park where he made numerous sketches of the rugged northern landscapes
• active as a painter for only four years before a somewhat mysterious death, which was officially considered an accident
• although a close friend of several of the members of the Group of Seven, he was not a member, since he died three years before the group was officially formed
• he used the sketches as models for the canvases that he painted during the winter
• his work broke with the conventional landscape style, were vividly realistic, and yet almost abstract in their vivid color and manipulation of texture.
• most famous painting is probably Jack Pine (1917, National Gallery, Ottawa):

• further reading:
  • Tom Thomson (1937) by Albert H. Robson
  • Tom Thomson: the Algonquin years (1969) by Ottelyn Addison in collaboration with Elizabeth Harwood
  • Tom Thomson, the silence and the storm (1977) by Harold Town and David
  • Tom Thomson: the jack pine (1975) by Dennis Reid
  • The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson: an introduction (1995) by Anne Newlands
• more info at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection
• more Group of Seven information

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