Lawren Harris, Lake Superior Sketch, c. 1927. Oil on panel, 30.2 x 38.0 cm.

Tom Thomson, The Fisherman, no date. Oil on Canvas, 51.3 x 56.5 cm

Formed in Toronto in 1920, the Group of Seven was Canada’s first self-proclaimed organization of modern artists. The original members befriended each other between 1911 and 1913 and included Franklin Carmichael, Lawren Harris, A.Y. Jackson, Franz Johnston, Arthur Lismer, J.E.H. MacDonald and Frederick Varley. Tom Thomson was an integral and influential part of this circle but, due to his untimely death in 1917, never became a member of the Group of Seven as a formalized gathering of artists. It was only after their first exhibition at the Art Museum of Toronto (now the Art Gallery of Ontario) in 1920 that the Group began to present themselves as a landscape school, united in their disdain for 19th century academic painting and its constraints. To the outrage of the artistic establishment at the time, the Group shifted emphasis away from mere imitation of nature toward a more evocative expression of emotion.

Tom Thomson and the Original Seven features works from the AGA Collection, bringing together paintings by Tom Thomson and the founding members of Canada’s most influential artistic collective. This exhibition welcomes the viewer with both rarely-seen and familiar images characteristic of the Group’s most significant work.