DOI Heft:
No. 317 (August 1919)
DOI Artikel:Studio-talk
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21358#0135
STUDIO-TALK
“RAMUNCHITA ” BY
G. L. BROCKHURST
(Chenil Gallery, Chelsea)
MONTREAL.—The loss to Canadian
Art by the tragic death of Tom Thom-
son in the summer of 1917 cannot be too
profoundly regretted. During his brief but
brilliant career as a landscape-painter he
produced hundreds of sketches and many
finished pictures of extraordinary indi-
viduality, charm, and power, but remark-
able chiefly in that they express a typically
Canadian spirit, in a degree never before so
concentrated and consistently maintained.
The son of an agriculturist, his youth was
spent on a farm in Central Ontario, but at
a comparatively early age he left home and
went West, where he followed various
occupations. During his wanderings he
learnt the craft of design and drawing for
lithography and engraving, and returning
to Toronto obtained employment with a
firm of engravers there. Among Thom-
son's fellow-draughtsmen and designers at
that time were several talented young men
with strong artistic leanings. The group
included J. E. H. MacDonald, Arthur
Lismer, Fred. H. Varley, Frank Johnston,
and Frank Carmichael, all of whom are
now painters of standing. Holidays were
spent together by most of the group in
sketching from Nature, and they spread
these bright periods of the week over the
duller working days by free and enthu-
siastic criticism and discussion of their out-
door efforts. In the summer of 1912
Thomson made his first sketching trip to
119
“RAMUNCHITA ” BY
G. L. BROCKHURST
(Chenil Gallery, Chelsea)
MONTREAL.—The loss to Canadian
Art by the tragic death of Tom Thom-
son in the summer of 1917 cannot be too
profoundly regretted. During his brief but
brilliant career as a landscape-painter he
produced hundreds of sketches and many
finished pictures of extraordinary indi-
viduality, charm, and power, but remark-
able chiefly in that they express a typically
Canadian spirit, in a degree never before so
concentrated and consistently maintained.
The son of an agriculturist, his youth was
spent on a farm in Central Ontario, but at
a comparatively early age he left home and
went West, where he followed various
occupations. During his wanderings he
learnt the craft of design and drawing for
lithography and engraving, and returning
to Toronto obtained employment with a
firm of engravers there. Among Thom-
son's fellow-draughtsmen and designers at
that time were several talented young men
with strong artistic leanings. The group
included J. E. H. MacDonald, Arthur
Lismer, Fred. H. Varley, Frank Johnston,
and Frank Carmichael, all of whom are
now painters of standing. Holidays were
spent together by most of the group in
sketching from Nature, and they spread
these bright periods of the week over the
duller working days by free and enthu-
siastic criticism and discussion of their out-
door efforts. In the summer of 1912
Thomson made his first sketching trip to
119