The Group of Seven in Western Canada

Peter Harmathy teaches fine arts in Victoria.

This stunning coffee-table book was produced to coincide with the
exhibition of the same name, which was mounted by the Glenbow Museum and
will tour until January 2004.

Catharine Mastin, the curator of the exhibit, and five other Canadian
scholars—Robert Stacey, Marcia Crosby, Liz Wylie, Anna Hudson, and Ann
Davis—contribute the intriguing well-written text, which covers all 10
members of the Group: Franklin Carmichael, A.J. Casson, Lionel LeMoine
FitzGerald, Lawren S. Harris, Edwin Holgate, A.Y. Jackson, Frank H.
Johnston, Arthur Lismer, J.E.H. MacDonald, and Frederick H. Varley.
Almost all the artists in the Group visited or lived in Western Canada.
This book looks at their work in the prairies, the foothills, the Rocky
Mountains, and the Yukon and Northwest Territories.

Painting mountains, with its altitude, weather, and compositional
challenges, presented great obstacles for the Group, notably for
Jackson, Johnston, Lismer, and MacDonald. Harris’s paintings of
mountains were always monumental and spiritual, until he moved into a
nonrepresentational abstract style after 1929. Varley lived a bohemian
lifestyle that followed a trail of successes, failures, a love affair,
and frequent evictions while living out a dream on the West Coast. West
Coast totem poles provided great inspiration for Jackson and Holgate,
whose works (along with those of artist Emily Carr) were to become the
last records of the Natives’ dying art.

Those who are familiar only with the Group’s Ontario landscapes will
be thrilled to see these western landscapes. The book features 130
sublime images and photographs. My only complaint is the virtual
omission of Emily Carr, who by Lawren Harris’s own account was
considered part of the Group. Nevertheless, The Group of Seven in
Western Canada adds greatly to our understanding of the Group’s
influence on our Canadian identity and makes an excellent contribution
to the history of Canadian art.