The Group of Seven March 17th, 2014 (Sick)

By: Jason

The Group of Seven was a group of canadian landscape artists. The group consisted of seven influential and famous painters from 1920 to 1933. The people who were in the Group of Seven were Franklin Carmichael, Lawren Harris, A. Y. Jackson ,Frank Johnston, Arthur Lismer , J. E. H. MacDonald , Frederick Varley, A.J Casson, Edwin Holgate, and LeMoine Fitzgerald.

The group was also called the Algonquin Painters, because of their vast time spent in the Algonquin Park, and because of the relation to Tom Thomson. The group started when six workers at an art studio called Grip Ltd. began meeting each other as a group, to discuss new ideas.

Later on when WWI occurred, the group was split up. Tom Thomson passed away. The seven that remained then officially formed the Group of Seven, in 1919. They wanted to dedicate the group to creating realistic and rough landscapes, a category that did not really exist at the time. The groups first exhibition was in 1920, and thanks to the support of Eric Brown, they had interested a number of people.

However, the opinions of the exhibition differed. The group began to gain traction, nevertheless. They were being called the pioneers of a new type of Canadian art. The group later moved to different parts of Canada, asides from Ontario to get better ideas and thoughts on how the art should have been created.

As they travelled outside of Ontario, they recruited two new members; Edwin Holgate from Montreal and, LeMoine Fitzgerald from Winnipeg. After the death of J.E.H. MacDonald in 1932, the Group of Seven decided that they had gained enough supporters and followers to expand and create a nationwide group. They called the new group the Canadian Group Of Painters. This new, and much larger group held exhibitions from 1933-1967. This group did include females, as the Group Of Seven never had any female members.

The group has been remembered as one of the greatest and most influential artists in the world. There since has been songs and books written for the Group of Seven. The group started the first ever Canadian art movement, and also promoted Canadas natural landscape.