Tom Thomson: The Algonquin Years

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University, Japan Foundation Fellow 1991-92, and the author of
Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Home and As Though Life Mattered:
Leo Kennedy’s Story.

Tom Thomson, a forerunner of the Group of Seven and a friend to many of
its members, died in 1917, before the Group’s first exhibition. Almost
all of his work was done in Algonquin Park during the four or five years
before his death by drowning under mysterious circumstances.

As Thoreau Macdonald writes, critics of Thomson’s work “must know
the trees, rocks, lakes, rivers, weather [of the Park and of the shores
of Georgian Bay]; have them in their bones.” Admirers will say Amen to
this. The grandeur, moods, and very essence of this wilderness area are
caught in Thomson’s bold and colorful landscapes. Macdonald was a
teenager during Thomson’s last years, and went often to the shack in
Toronto that served as the artist’s studio to watch the progress of
paintings. Macdonald’s warm four-page memoir is lit with delightful
details such as the one of Thomson sitting in his studio beside a
photo-engraver’s tank filled with water, gently paddling.

Ottelyn Addison enjoyed childhood summers in Algonquin Park, where her
father worked as a ranger and knew Thomson. She draws extensively on her
father’s journals and reminiscences for her engaging short biography,
reprinted after 26 years for the 75th anniversary of the Group’s first
show. Elizabeth Harwood’s material relating to Thomson’s life in the
Park (letters, photos, personal reminiscences) is put to good use. Five
paintings are reproduced in color, together with many black-and-white
photos of paintings, of Thomson in the Park, and of contemporary Park
people and scenes. This unpretentious biography affords a human, rounded
impression of the painter.