Tom Thomson

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For people with similar names, see Thomas Thompson.

Tom Thomson

Thomas John Thomson (August 5, 1877 – July 8, 1917) was an influential Canadian artist of the early 20th century.

Contents

1 Biography
2 Art and technique
3 Legacy and influence
4 References
5 External links

Biography

Tom Thomson was born near Claremont, Ontario and grew up in Leith, near Owen Sound. In 1899 some biographers report that he unsuccessfully tried to volunteer to fight in the Second Boer War, and instead went to a business college in Chatham and later in Seattle, Washington. In 1904 he returned to Canada, and in 1907 joined an artistic design firm in Toronto where many of the future members of the Group of Seven also worked. With his colleagues he often travelled around Canada, especially to the wilderness of Ontario, which was a major source of inspiration for Thomson. His first exhibition was in 1913.

Beginning in 1914 he acted as a fire fighter and guide in Algonquin Park in Ontario. During the next three years he produced many of his most famous works, including The Jack Pine and The West Wind. However, he disappeared during a canoeing trip in on July 8, 1917, and his body was discovered on July 16. The official cause of death was drowning, but there are still questions about how he actually died. It has been speculated that he was murdered by a romantic rival or due to gambling debts; however, no one was ever tried for causing his death. He was buried at Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park the next afternoon, but at the request of his family his body was exhumed and reinterred in the family plot beside the Leith Presbyterian Church on July 21.

Art and technique

Thomson was largely a self taught artist, although he had had a long career as a graphic designer, much of it with Toronto's Grip Ltd., which gave him a keen sense of draughtsmanship. Although he began painting and drawing at an early age as a hobby, it was only in 1912, when Thomson was well into his thirties, that he began painting seriously. His first trips to Algonquin Park inspired him to follow the lead of fellow artists in producing oil sketches of natural scenes on small, rectangular panels for easy portability while traveling. Between 1912 and his death in 1917, Thomson produced hundreds of these small sketches, many of which are now housed in such galleries as the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto and the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.

Many of Thomson's major paintings, including The Jack Pine, Northern River, The West Wind and "The Northern River", began as sketches before being expanded into large oil paintings at Thomson's "studio"--an old utility shack with a wood-burning stove on the grounds of an artist's enclave in Rosedale, Toronto. Although Thomson sold few of these paintings during his lifetime, they formed the basis of the posthumous exhibitions, including one at Wembley in London, that eventually brought international attention to his work.

Jack Pine

Thomson's peak period of oil painting was from 1914 to 1917 with the patronage of Toronto physician Dr. James MacCallum who enabled Thomson's transition from graphic designer to professional painter (although he never made a living entirely from painting).

Although Thomson was never a member of the Group of Seven (it is a common misconception that he was), his work bears much stylistic resemblance to that of such group members as A. Y. Jackson, Frederick Varley, and Arthur Lismer. These artists shared in common an appreciation for rugged, unkempt natural scenery, and all used broad brush strokes and the liberal application of paint to capture the stark beauty and vibrant colour of the Ontario landscape.

Thomson never visited Europe, but his art bears some stylistic resemblance to the work of such post-impressionists as Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Cezanne, whose work he may have known from books or visits to art galleries. Other key influences were the Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts movements of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, both of which styles he knew from his work in the graphic arts.

Since his death, Thomson's work has grown ever-more valuable and popular. In 2002, the National Gallery of Canada staged a major exhibition of his work, giving Thomson the same level of prominence afforded Picasso, Renoir, and the Group of Seven in previous years. In recent decades, the increased value of Thomson's work has led to the discovery of numerous forgeries of his work on the market.

Legacy and influence

In September 1917, a memorial cairn was erected at Hayhurst Point on Canoe Lake where Thomson drowned by artists James E. H. MacDonald and John W. Beatty with assistance from area residents. The cost was paid by Dr. MacCallum. It can be accessed by boat.

The Tom Thomson Memorial Cairn, Canoe Lake, Algonquin Park

Another historical marker concerning Tom Thomson was moved to the graveyard in the summer of 2004 from its earlier location nearer the centre of Leith.In 1967 the Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery opened in Owen Sound. Numerous examples of his work are also on display at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, Art Gallery of Ontario,and the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario.

The Group of Seven was not officially founded until after Thomson's death, and his paintings were associated with and representative of the Group's style. His influence can also be seen in the work of later Canadian artists, including Emily Carr, Goodridge Roberts, Harold Town, and Joyce Wieland.

In 1970, Judge William Little published a book, The Tom Thomson Mystery about his digging up Thomson's original gravesite in the Mowat Cemetery on Canoe Lake in 1956. He and three companions found a body in what they believed was Thomson's coffin. Medical investigators decided that the body was that of a native Indian.

The Tragically Hip wrote a song dedicated to Tom Thomson called Three Pistols on their 1991 album Road Apples.

Books on Thomson's art include The Silence and the Storm by Harold Town and David Silcox, and several coffee table books by the art expert Joan Murray. Roy MacGregor's novel Shorelines (reissued in 2002 as Canoe Lake) is a fictional interpretation of Thomson's death.

References

Lehto, Neil J. Algonquin Elegy Tom Thomson's Last Spring, iUniverse, 2005. ISBN 0595361323

Little, William T. The Tom Thomson Mystery, McGraw-Hill, 1970. ISBN 0070926557

Murray, Joan. Tom Thomson: The Last Spring, Dundurn, 1994.

Town, Harold and David Silcox. The Silence and the Storm, McClelland and Stewart, 1977.

External links

Group of Seven

Other members: A. J. Casson | Edwin Holgate | LeMoine Fitzgerald | Tom Thomson

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