Latest news with #TomThomson
CBC
12-07-2025
- CBC
Behind the eyes and in the land: What Tom Thomson saw, and what he may have missed
** Originally published on December 14, 2018. By Sean Foley Many of us just can't resist a good pilgrimage, whether it's a religious one or not. The soul desires a deeper connection with whatever truly moves us. The late Canadian painter Tom Thomson has inspired many such pilgrimages. People often travel to where he's thought to be buried, in the family plot at Leith, Ont., or in a tiny cemetery beside Canoe Lake, in Algonquin Park, where he died under mysterious circumstances in 1917. What strikes a deeper chord in me, though, is discovering the places he painted: the sites that made him set down his things and open his painting box. In the fall of 2018, while my brother Adam and I were portaging between two small lakes in the northeastern reaches of Algonquin Park, I heard rushing water way back in the woods. I stopped to take a look, making my way through the undergrowth, holding on to tree trunks. What I found was almost certainly the subject of a canvas painted during his last winter, in his shack in Toronto: Woodland Waterfall. It was exhilarating to discover something that Thomson himself laid eyes on and was moved to paint. Left: Tom Thomson | Woodland Waterfall, 1916-1917 | oil on canvas | 121.9 x 132.5 cm | Purchased 1977 with Funds Donated by The W. Garfield Weston Foundation. Right: CBC's Sean Foley came across this waterfall in Algonquin Park, Ont., that may have been the inspiration for Woodland Waterfall. Others have spent lots of time and effort tracking these sites down and documenting them, including Jim and Sue Waddington and the McElroys of Point Alexander. I'm just another pilgrim with a yearning to walk in Thomson's footsteps. The essence of the place There were occasions of even deeper connection: I wasn't just "matching" sites and paintings. I was seeing and feeling those dynamics of weather, terrain, and sheer serendipity that must have struck Thomson. These were the experiences of just being alive in that place. It occurs to me all the time, standing in front of a little sketch, or even a finished painting by Tom Thomson. You feel you're behind the eyes; so there is that personal identification with him, too. Here's what I mean. One evening, Adam and I camped on a peninsula jutting out into a small lake called Opalescent. We felt — and heard — the west wind, moving trees for miles around in a great chorus of branches and leaves and needles rustling against one another. A light rain blew in, and moved on, and a rainbow appeared. Then, as the sun went down, the cloud patterns and the dappled water spoke for hours in a familiar voice. We weren't "in" a specific Thomson work; I have no idea what paintings he might have done on this lake, but we were immersed in the same phenomena that moved him. Reading the landscape On the first day of our Algonquin pilgrimage, Adam and I went the wrong way. We couldn't see the inlet where the portage was, and we were paddling into a headwind, taunted by whitecaps. Eventually we got across the lake into a narrows, and things calmed down enough for us to realize we had to turn around. Only later did I see a note on the map that we had paddled past some petroglyphs — twice. Petroglyphs — drawings on rock made by the Anishinaabe, the Indigenous people of this land — point us to an even more profound way of seeing and experiencing, one quite apart from the western school of landscape art of Thomson and the Group of Seven. Left: Tom Thomson | Sumac in Autumn (alternative title: Red Sumac), 1916 | oil on composite wood-pulp board | 21.6 x 26.8 cm | Collection of the Tom Thomson Art Gallery. Right: A bright red shock of maple leaves seen in Algonquin Park, Ont. Gerald McMaster is a professor of Indigenous visual culture and curatorial practice at the Ontario College of Art and Design University in Toronto. He was part of the team that reinstalled the Canadian collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2008. He juxtaposed Thomson's West Wind with two quillwork bags made by Anishinaabe artists in the late 18th century. These bags depicted the Thunderbird and the Mishipeshu, forces that he saw at work in Thomson's painting. I asked McMaster what he might hang with The Pointers, one of my favourite Thomson canvases, painted during the winter of 1916-1917. He thought immediately of the great Anishinaabe painter Norval Morrisseau. "He studied his elders. He studied perhaps some of the pictographs that you'd see on the rock surfaces in Northern Ontario, Midewiwin scrolls that are often studied by religious leaders ... and created his own peculiar style ... quite colourful like Thomson," he said. "But he's not creating a landscape like a landscape painter. [He's] rather reading the landscape, what's in the landscape: the spirits, the animals, the fish below and the interrelation of everything." In 1979, Morrisseau was invited by the McMichael Canadian Collection to take up residence in Thomson's shack, on the gallery's grounds in Kleinburg, Ontario. Morrisseau created some stunning paintings during that time; one of the most famous ones is called Shaman and Disciples. It communicates a powerful message of vision and wisdom almost immediately. McMaster points to a deep and illuminating expression of land and spirituality being expressed by a whole new generation of Indigenous artists, like Christi Belcourt, Lisa Myers and Michael Belmore. "It goes back to that Indigenous knowledge of the land," said McMaster. "They're studying the land so remarkably and intellectually and in an articulate way … I could see that kind of artist juxtaposed together with Thomson ... because again it's a Northern Ontario landscape. "We're just looking at it differently. Artists are looking at the same thing in a different way." Download the IDEAS podcast to listen to this series. Guests in this episode:
CBC
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Demystifying the mysterious death of great Canadian painter, Tom Thomson
* Originally published on November 9, 2018. Tom Thomson's paintings are among the most famous and beloved artworks in Canada. Thomson himself is one of the most mythologized Canadians of his time — and ours. Now, 100 years after his mysterious death on Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park, when he was at the peak of his powers, IDEAS producer Sean Foley asks one central question: does the mortal and material fascination with Tom Thomson leave us with something enduring — something to carry us through the next century, and beyond? Finding beauty in the void Tom Thomson didn't — couldn't — leave behind the same detailed traces that we do now. He may not have wanted to. He didn't seem like an 'Instagram your supper' kind of guy. But then, that's just projection on my part. When he died suddenly in 1917, he left a few letters, a relatively small number of major paintings, and — the real treasure — hundreds of oil sketches done on boards in one corner or another of Algonquin Park. As for us, we're captured on CCTV cameras everywhere we go. We want to show the whole world where we are and what our ideal selves look like. These days, it's not so hard to distract ourselves from the unknowable. So when we confront the unknowable, how do we react? In this two-part series, I explore what we think we know about Tom Thomson, what distracts us from knowing, and what connects us to the deeper gifts of his life and work. We'll look at the historical record, and how it's been spun out over the past century. We'll also explore the poetry of Robert Kroetsch, Joyce Wieland's film The Far Shore, and, most powerfully, the paintings Tom left us, many of which he simply gave away to acquaintances, friends, and family. Gregory Klages is a historian and author of The Many Deaths of Tom Thomson: Separating Fact from Fiction. He has traced the stories about Thomson's life and death back to as many primary sources as he could find. And it's fascinating to see how little factual evidence underpins many of the most popular Thomson tales. "All sorts of aspects of his life and death and artwork became good hooks or interesting things for us to talk about and speculate on. And sometimes to make an interesting story, to make a provocative story — to insert something a little bit salacious or juicy or to to riff on an idea that made people go 'ooh I never thought of it that way. That's interesting, that's intriguing.' And there's nothing to contradict the idea. So it 'could' be true." Just why, and how, do we speculate? Well, we seem to do it reflexively. And we do it in the form of biography and history just as often as we do in fiction and mythology — especially with an elusive character like Tom Thomson. Sherrill Grace, a professor Emerita at the University of British Columbia, explores biographies and fictions about Tom Thomson in her book Inventing Tom Thomson. She's also an accomplished biographer herself. She says we can't — and perhaps shouldn't — think we can capture the 'real person' we're writing about. The minute we start writing about somebody, or performing something about somebody else's life, we are already creating a fiction story about that person which matters to us; and if the person is dead, that person doesn't give a damn, do they? - Sherrill Grace But of course we do. Which is probably why we can't stop reading, writing, or even tweeting our own life stories, and those with whom we are fascinated. Though it has its pitfalls, the mythologizing and the storytelling and the intrigue is part of why I did this series. I had to hear about Tom Thomson to fall in love with his paintings. British art historian Ian Dejardin first heard about Tom Thomson in the library at the Royal Academy in London. Now he's running the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario — which has nearly 100 Thomson paintings, as well as the actual shack he worked in. For Dejardin, it's Thomson's lightning-fast mastery of paint during the last few years of his life that fascinates: "He suddenly found his language, and he found it in colour and immediacy and also that whole business of being an explorer out there in the 'wilderness' so-called with your canoe. [It] meant that you could only paint on a small scale. You had to paint on a small board that you could then carry in a box. And that fed into his genius as well. Those conversations, that liberation of colour, and the technique that was forced on him by the business of having to carry your stuff into the wilderness in a canoe... resulted in this perfect storm: an absolutely perfect marriage of genius, eyesight, and technique." And, ultimately, that's what fills the void: beauty, energy, and joy, all rendered in paint. Gregory Klages is a historian and the author of The Many Deaths of Tom Thomson: Separating Fact from Fiction (Dundurn Press, 2016). Sherrill Grace is Professor Emerita at the University of British Columbia and the author of Inventing Tom Thomson (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2004). Ian Dejardin is an art historian and the former executive director of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.
CBC
18-06-2025
- General
- CBC
4 years after vanishing, painting at heart of $11M lawsuit re-emerges — but mystery far from over
When his lawyer's name flashed on his phone early last month, Michael Murray ducked out to answer the call — the physician was in the middle seeing patients at his medical clinic in Hawaii, but this call from Toronto felt important. It turns out it was. The lawyer said: "You're not going to believe it, but the painting has been found," Murray told CBC News in an interview. "It was almost disbelief." It had been 10 years since Murray had seen his painting — believed to be an unsigned original Tom Thomson painting of Tea Lake Dam in Algonquin Park in southeastern Ontario. "To be quite honest with you, I never thought we would find that painting again," said Murray. "It was very surprising, very exciting actually." While Murray is taking comfort that his painting has been located, it's unclear where exactly it was for about 10 years. Murray says it was picked up in 2015 by a then-employee of Waddington's Auctioneers & Appraisers in Toronto, awaiting auction. But in 2021, the auction house told him it didn't have it. He filed an $11-million lawsuit against Waddington's in 2022 seeking damages. In court documents, Waddington's said it never had the painting. Then last month, the auction house sent a letter to Murray's lawyer, Steven Bookman, saying they'd found the painting. A lawyer for the auction house told CBC News it can't comment on the discovery because the matter is still before the courts. And so the mystery — in part — lives on. Bookman told CBC News few details were shared with him in the letter from Waddington's — including precisely where the painting was found. "They didn't tell us exactly. They just indicated that it was in a climate-controlled storeroom." A few weeks later, Bookman said he was able to arrange to visit the painting, accompanied by a local expert who had restored the painting in 2014. WATCH | A missing painting at the centre of an $11-million lawsuit emerges: An unsigned painting believed to be an original Tom Thomson has been found in Toronto years after it went missing. "There was no damage to the painting and [the expert] verified that it was in the same condition," said Bookman. When CBC News met Bookman in his Toronto office last week, the painting was in his possession, about to be taken to a secure storage facility that specializes in artwork. Bookman said he was surprised to receive that initial letter. "First of all, [I was] shocked that Waddington's actually indicated that they had the painting in their possession — that was amazing news. We were very, very pleased that it had been recovered. "And also shocked that we had gone through a very complex and extended lawsuit bringing us to that point where the painting was actually where it was supposed to be in the first place." Bookman said there are still many unanswered questions, including how the painting wasn't discovered last summer, when the Waddington's facility was moved from Bathurst and Adelaide streets to a new location near Broadview Avenue and Queen Street East in Toronto's east end. Even though the painting has been returned, Bookman said they're still moving ahead with the lawsuit. "Dr. Murray has lost the use and enjoyment of this painting for a decade. Had he been successful in having Waddington's market the painting for him, he lost the use of the funds that he would have had or any interest or investment income from it. So there still are multiple areas that we'll be pursuing for damages here," said Bookman, adding his client has incurred significant legal fees as well. The end of a personal chapter For Murray, the painting's discovery is the closing of a personal chapter — the artwork was given to him by his now-deceased uncle, Paul Chandler, as a gift for his graduation from medical school. Murray says Tom Thomson gave the painting to his friend, Charlie Scrim. His sister, Flora Scrim, ran Scrim's Florist shop in Ottawa. Chandler worked at the shop for decades, and after Flora Scrim died in the 1970s, Murray says she left her home and the painting to Chandler. "Forty years we had that painting — it hung in our home from 1977 to 2015," said Murray. The National Gallery in Ottawa verified that a pigment in that painting called Freeman's white was only used by Group of Seven painters and Tom Thomson, and said in a report that it "strongly supports the attribution to Tom Thomson." "It was a real, real personal thing. And the fact that we couldn't find it for so long — it was a very personal problem for me," said Murray While Murray expressed joy and relief at the painting's discovery, he's curious about what really happened. "There is an interest on my side to kind of understand how it could be missing for 10 years and then all of a sudden show up," said Murray. "I think we may or may not get answers to that." Murray said the painting's unknown travels in some ways mirror the mystery surrounding parts of the famed Canadian painter's life. "There's a lot of similarities between that mystery and Tom Thomson's mysterious passing — to this day, there's still questions." Looking for a buyer Murray said now that the painting is in the possession of his lawyer, he'd like to once again begin the process of trying to find a buyer. "It's available to somebody who's interested in Tom Thomson paintings." An appraisal done of the painting in 2022 — through photographs and other documentation — pegged its value at about $1.5 million.
