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Escarpment Magaz ine Summer 2012
In honour
of this momentous occasion the Tom Thomson Art Gallery has created a unique
partnership opportunity amongst the arts, culture and business communities of Owen
Sound (Thomson's home town) and Huntsville (gateway to Algonquin Park) to present
activities inspired by and reflective of the impact of Thomson's voyage to Algonquin.
From April through October, 2012 organizations, individuals and businesses will create
opportunities to celebrate this event. The Canadian Spirit 2012 project will consist of ex-
hibitions, performances, readings, film series, hands on activities and other events bring-
ing together people to explore, celebrate and connect with Thomson and his legacy.
Canadian Spirit 2012 goes beyond mere homage, providing opportunities for critical
engagement and discourse, including contemporary responses to the work, investiga-
tions of the "environmental" tourist market both past and present, and representation from
First Nations communities discussing the mythologizing of an "undiscovered" country
which had been their home for millennia prior to Thomson's and the Group of Seven's
depictions of the majestic, unpeopled northlands. As such Canadian Spirit 2012 presents
a multi-layered, many-faceted opportunity to explore and discover Thomson, and his
beloved Algonquin Park, in a way never before presented.
Canadian Spirit 2012 is the first of an ongoing annual series that will culminate in Cana-
dian Spirit 2017:
Someday they will know what I mean
... marking the 100
th
anniver-
sary of Thomson's death and the 150
th
anniversary of Canada and which will focus on
ideas and issues around Canadian identity, its past and its evolution. The Canadian Spirit
series will balance the honour owed to the past with the needs of the present, while al-
ways looking forward to the future.”
~Virginia Eichhorn | Director + Curator | Tom Thomson Gallery
SPECIAL EVENTS:
LECTURE - Tom Thomson's Final Resting Place: Mowat or Leith
Neil J. Lehto - Sunday, August 5 at 2 pm - Tom Thomson Art Gallery - Admission: Free
The two-fold mystery of Tom Thomson involves how he drowned in Algonquin Park’s
Canoe Lake in 1917 and where his remains are buried today. Roy MacGregor’s recent
book, Northern Lights, offered some evidence that Thomson was murdered and that his
skeletal remains were found and secretly reburied near the little Mowat Cemetery on
Canoe Lake in 1956. Neil J. Lehto disputes both of MacGregor’s theories. His talk will
closely examine all of the events surrounding Tom Thomson’s burial, exhumation and re-
burial as told by Mark Robinson, Winnifred Trainor, Blodwen Davies, William T. Little,
Dr. Noble Sharp, M.D., andMacGregor. Mr. Lehto will offer new evidence fromOntario
government records for his persuasive conclusion. Lehto is a sixty-two year old attorney
fromMichigan whose book, Algonquin Elegy: Tom Thomson’s Last Spring, was published
in 2005.
Gallery Tour to Algonquin Park | September 25 to 27 -
Join the Gallery for a unique travel experience as we celebrate the 100
th
Anniversary
of Tom’s first trip to Algonquin Park. Travelling by deluxe motor coach we will stop at the
McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, visit the Canadian Canoe Museum
in Peterborough, then spend a whole day in Algonquin Park - all while the autumn colours
are at their peak. We return via Hunstville to view some of the over 40 murals dedicated
to Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven, before culminating our Thomson excursion
with a tour of Canadian Spirit: The Tom Thomson Experience at the TOM.
|E|
Visit the website for full trip details, pricing and how to register and for a listing of all special events.
FEATURE
|
looking for tom thomson
The Jack Pine - This painting was completed in 1917, the
year of Thomson's death. A representation of the most
broadly distributed pine species in Canada, it is considered
an iconic image of the country's landscape and is one of the
country's most widely recognized and reproduced artworks.
It is a roughly square canvas measuring 127.9 × 139.8 cm.
It has been in the collection of the National Gallery of
Canada in Ottawa, Ontario since 1918.
The West Wind is a well-known painting by Tom Thomson.
An iconic image, the pine at its centre has been described as
growing "in the national ethos as our one and only tree in a
country of trees". It was the artist's final painting, and
according to some art historians was unfinished at the time
of his sudden death by drowning in 1917.
Thomson based The West Wind on an earlier, slightly
different sketch he produced in 1916 while working as a
park ranger in Algonquin Park. In the finished canvas
Thomson moved the pine further to the right, replaced a
less defined foreground plane with strongly patterned rock
shapes, and removed a dead tree limb from the ground.
The location of the subject is uncertain; Thomson's friend
Winifred Trainor believed the site represented was Cedar
Lake, though Grand Lake, Algonquin Park has also been
proposed as the setting. Some locals believe the
location to be on Kawawaymog Lake.
Thomson needs no tablet to commemorate his
achievements... He has left us work that expresses
our national l i fe – the forces of the great natural
surroundings of this young land.
~George Locke
