Group of Seven (artists)
The Group of Seven, once known as the Algonquin School, was a group of Canadian landscape painters from 1920 to 1933, originally consisting of Franklin Carmichael (1890–1945), Lawren Harris (1885–1970), A. Y. Jackson (1882–1974), Frank Johnston (1888–1949), Arthur Lismer (1885–1969), J. E. H. MacDonald (1873–1932), and Frederick Varley (1881–1969). Later, A. J. Casson (1898–1992) was invited to join in 1926, Edwin Holgate (1892–1977) became a member in 1930, and LeMoine FitzGerald (1890–1956) joined in 1932. Two artists commonly associated with the group are Tom Thomson (1877–1917) and Emily Carr (1871–1945). Although he died before its official  formation, Thomson had a significant influence on the group. In his essay "The Story of the Group of Seven", Harris wrote that Thomson was "a part of the movement before we pinned a label on it"; Thomson's paintings "The West Wind" and "The Jack Pine" are two of the group's most iconic pieces. Emily Carr was also posthumously added to the group of seven. Believing that a distinct Canadian art could be developed through direct contact with nature, the Group of Seven is best known for its paintings inspired by the Canadian landscape, and initiated the first major  Canadian national art movement. The Group was succeeded by the Canadian Group of Painters in 1933, which included members from the Beaver Hall Group who had a history of showing with the Group of Seven internationally. Collections. Large collections of work from the Group of Seven are located at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa as well as the Ottawa Art Gallery (home to The Firestone Collection of Canadian Art) and the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario. The National Gallery, under the directorship of Eric Brown, was an early institutional  supporter of artists associated with the Group, purchasing art from some of their early exhibitions before they had identified themselves officially as the Group of Seven. The Art Gallery of Ontario, in its earlier incarnation as the Art Gallery of Toronto, was the site of their first exhibition as the Group of Seven in 1920. The McMichael Canadian Art Collection was founded by Robert and Signe McMichael, who began collecting paintings by the Group of Seven and their contemporaries in 1955. History. Tom Thomson, J. E. H. MacDonald, Arthur Lismer, Frederick Varley, Frank Johnston and Franklin Carmichael met as employees  of the design firm Grip Ltd. in Toronto. In 1913, they were joined by A. Y. (Alexander Young) Jackson and Lawren Harris. They often met at the Arts and Letters Club of Toronto to discuss their opinions and share their art. This group received monetary support from Harris (heir to the Massey-Harris farm machinery fortune) and Dr. James MacCallum. Harris and MacCallum jointly built the Studio Building in 1914 in the Rosedale ravine to serve as a meeting and working place for the new Canadian art movement. MacCallum owned an island on Georgian Bay and Thomson worked as a  guide in nearby Algonquin Park, both places where he and the other artists often travelled for inspiration. The informal group was temporarily split up during World War I, during which Jackson and Varley became official war artists. Jackson enlisted in June 1915 and served in France from November 1915 to 1917, at which point he was seriously injured. Harris enlisted in 1916 and taught musketry at Camp Borden. He was discharged in May 1918 after suffering a nervous breakdown. Carmichael, MacDonald, Thomson, Varley and Johnston remained in Toronto and struggled in the depressed wartime economy. A further blow to the  group came in 1917 when Thomson died mysteriously while canoeing in Algonquin Park. The circumstances of his death remain unclear. The seven who formed the original group reunited after the war. They continued to travel throughout Ontario, especially the Muskoka and Algoma regions, sketching the landscape and developing techniques to represent it in art. In 1919, they decided to make themselves into a group devoted to a distinct Canadian form of art which did not exist yet, and began to call themselves the Group of Seven. It is unknown who specifically chose these seven men, but it is believed to  have been Harris or Harris in combination with MacDonald. By 1920, they were ready for their first exhibition thanks to the constant support and encouragement of Eric Brown, the director of the National Gallery at that time. Reviews for the 1920 exhibition were mixed, but as the decade progressed the Group came to be recognized as pioneers of a new, Canadian, school of art. After Frank Johnston moved to Winnipeg in the fall of 1921, Percy James Robinson is claimed to have been invited to fill the open spot. Robinson participated in the group's 3rd exhibition at the Art  Gallery of Ontario. In 1926, A. J. Casson was invited to join. Franklin Carmichael had taken a liking to him and had encouraged Casson to sketch and paint for many years. The Group's champions during its early years included Barker Fairley, a co-founder of "Canadian Forum magazine", and the warden of Hart House at the University of Toronto, J. Burgon Bickersteth. The members of the Group began to travel elsewhere in Canada for inspiration, including British Columbia, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and the Arctic. After Samuel Gurney Cresswell and other painters on Royal Navy expeditions, these were the first  artists of European descent who depicted the Arctic. Soon, the Group made the decision that to be called a "national school of painters" there should be members from outside Toronto. As a result, in 1930 Edwin Holgate from Montreal, Quebec became a member, followed by LeMoine FitzGerald from Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1932. The Group's influence was so widespread by the end of 1931, and after J. E. H. MacDonald's death in 1932, they no longer found it necessary to continue as a group of painters. They announced that the Group had been disbanded and that a new association  of painters would be formed, known as the Canadian Group of Painters. The Canadian Group—which eventually consisted of the majority of Canada's leading artists—held its first exhibition in 1933, and continued to hold exhibitions almost every year as a successful society until 1967. Legacy. The Group of Seven has received criticism for its reinforcement of terra nullius presenting the region as pristine and untouched by humans when in fact the areas depicted have been lived in for many centuries. This sentiment was expressed by Jackson, who in his 1958 autobiography wrote, In 1966, the Legislative Assembly of  Ontario incorporated the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, an art gallery with an institutional focus on the Group of Seven, along with "their contemporaries and on the aboriginal peoples of Canada". In addition to housing a collection of works by the Group of Seven, the museum property also contains the burial ground for six members of the group, including A.Y. Jackson, Arthur Lismer, Frederick Varley, Lawren Harris, Frank Johnston, and A.J. Casson; along with four of the artists' wives. The McMichael cemetery is situated in the small patch of consecrated land bordered by trees, with graves marked by large chunks of  the Canadian Shield. The idea to use the property as a burial ground for the group was first proposed to the institution by Jackson in 1968. In 1995, the National Gallery of Canada compiled a Group of Seven retrospective show, for which they commissioned the Canadian rock band Rheostatics to write a musical score. That score was released on album as "Music Inspired by the Group of Seven". Around 2001, Cree artist Kent Monkman began recreating a series of paintings by Tom Thomson and Group of Seven artists such as Lawren S. Harris, including Thomson’s "The Jack Pine" (1916–17 ) and Harris’s "North Shore, Lake Superior" (1926). To counter the absence of Indigenous people in these representations of the Canadian landscape, Monkman inserted couplings between submissive cowboys and dominant “Indians” into the appropriated paintings, then overlaid the images with violent and racist texts borrowed from pulp Western novels and explicit narratives from gay erotic fiction. His intention was to use sexual power dynamics as a means of exploring larger issues of Christianity and colonization. In 2004, Monkman held a filmed performance entitled "Group of Seven Inches" at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg. Contemporary painter Rae Johnson was inspired  by Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven in the themes of some of her works and her choice of painting place, as were many other artists. Shows of Group of Seven members or single paintings in some combination are a perennial favorite of the Canadian exhibition world, particularly of the National Gallery of Canada. The Group still receives criticism, usually for what it left out of the narrative. In 2016, for instance, a publication criticized it for its paintings of empty landscapes which helped to forge a fictitious national identity that celebrated the land as open for ownership and  extraction. This concept was explored by Canadian artist Will Kwan in his show, "Terra Economicus", of 2021, held at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa. Other omissions are noted. But usually the Group is simply regarded as part of Canadian art history and explored in depth, as, for instance, for the centenary, the Kelowna Art Gallery in 2020 organized "Northern Pine: Watercolours and Drawings by the Group of Seven from the McMichael Canadian Art Collection" curated by Ian M. Thom. The National Gallery of Canada also organized shows for the centenary, such as the "Magnetic North: Imagining Canada in Painting, 1910 -1940", shown at the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt in 2021. For the centenary as well, the National Gallery`s Philip Dombowsky of the Library and Archives at the Gallery organized a show titled "Group of Seven: Graphic Design". Recognition. On September 18, 1970, Canada Post issued 'The Group of Seven', designed by Allan Robb Fleming and based on a painting, "Isles of Spruce" (1922), by Arthur Lismer and held in the Hart House Permanent Collection, University of Toronto. The 6¢ stamps are perforated 11, and were printed by Ashton-Potter Limited. On June 29, 1995, Canada Post issued 10 stamps, each based  on a painting of a member of the group (7 original members and 3 additional members): On May 7, 2020, Canada Post honoured the centennial of the Group's first exhibition, at the Art Gallery of Toronto (May 7, 1920), by issuing seven stamps, featuring paintings by each of the original members. The stamps were produced in a booklet of seven self-adhesives, and on a souvenir sheet of seven gummed stamps. First day ceremonies were cancelled, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, so designs were unveiled online on May 6, via the social media accounts of the postal service and  several galleries across the country which own the works featured on the stamps: In 2012–2013, the Royal Canadian Mint issued seven pure silver one-ounce coins, collectively reproducing one painting by each original member: