Tom Thomson: Design for a Canadian Hero

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is also the
author of The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese Women’s Lives, Kurlek, and
Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Hom

Joan Murray has written of Tom Thomson’s work before, and will do so
again, but here she focuses on the life that underpins the magnificent
work. Soon after finishing Tom Thomson: The Last Spring (1994), Murray
was asked to write a biography of the artist to explore the experiences
that lie behind his work. She would find her key in Thomson’s love of
design: “He was a revolutionary of style.”

Thomson was the sixth child in a large, happy, and cultured family of
Scottish immigrants. Books and music surrounded him from the start. A
distant cousin sharpened his instinctive love of nature into knowledge
and taught him the skills of a naturalist. There were no funds for a
university education, so Thomson began work as an engraver, and took
night classes in art. He would eventually find his métier in design and
in painting.

Murray’s slim book, set in double columns of paint, packs a
surprising amount of data and detail. Later chapters take readers
through Thomson’s northern painting trips with Arthur Lismer, a fellow
engraver; the formation of the Algonquin Park School in 1914; the
influence of mysticism imparted via Bliss Carman and Belgian playwright
Maurice Maeterlinck; and the painting explosions of 1916–17 in
Algonquin prior to Thomson’s tragic and mysterious death.

Like any biographer, Murray must play detective. Her portrait of
Thomson is detailed and intriguing. The book includes eight pages (16
sides) of color photographs of Thomson’s paintings from 1914 to 1917,
many small black-and-white photos of family and early work, and a few
drawings. Murray is an art historian, a prolific author, and director of
the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa. Design for a Hero covers fresh
and much-needed ground that helps to illumine the life and work of one
of Canada’s greatest painters.