Tom Thomson and The Books About Him

IN QUEST OF TOM THOMSON - THE CONCLUSION, AS WRITTEN BY ARTIST ALBERT H. ROBINSON, CIRCA 1937

A BOOK ON THOMSON I JUST COULDN'T LIVE WITHOUT -

WHAT AN AMAZINGLY BRIGHT AND CHEERFUL LATE WINTER DAY, HERE IN SOUTH MUSKOKA. I HAVE JUST TAKEN A LITTLE JAUNT THROUGH THE WOODLANDS ABOVE THE BOG, AND THE SUNLIGHT IS DAZZLING ON THE NEW SNOW, SCULPTED AROUND THE TRUNKS OF HARDWOODS AND VENERABLE OLD PINES, FROM THE WEEKEND'S STORM. THE PATH IS ICE-COVERED ALREADY, THE SLIDING WORK OF MANY FEET OVER THE PAST SEVERAL DAYS. IT IS LIKE WALKING INTO A TOM THOMSON PAINTING, WITHOUT CAUSING ANY DAMAGE. THE PLAY OF LIGHT AND SHADOW OF HARDWOOD AND EVERGREEN, IS SPECTACULAR, AND FROM SO MANY VANTAGE POINTS, I CAN FRAME A HALF DOZEN PAINTINGS I'D LOVE TO OWN…..DEPICTING THE PLACE I LOVE TO ESCAPE. I HAVE BEEN WRITING ALL MORNING, TRYING TO GET A START ON THE BIOGRAPHY OF MUSKOKA ARTIST, RICHARD KARON, AND CAN ADMIT HAPPILY, I HAVE GOTTEN PAST THAT FIRST HURDLE MOST WRITERS DREAD……"CHAPTER ONE." IT WILL TAKE A FEW WEEKS YET TO COMPOSE THE "ON-LINE" BIOGRAPHY, I INTEND TO PRESENT ON THIS BLOG-SITE, LATER IN MARCH. ADMITTEDLY I WAS THINKING ABOUT MR. KARON, WHILE WALKING THROUGH THESE SUNLIT WOODS, WONDERING HOW HE MIGHT HAVE PAINTED THIS GRANDLY ILLUMINATED SCENE. I WAS ALSO THINKING ABOUT TOM THOMSON, THE NEXT PROJECT FOR ME, AFTER RETURNING HOME TO BIRCH HOLLOW. IT IS THE CONTINUATION OF THE REVIEW OF MY NEWLY ACQUIRED, ALBERT ROBINSON BOOK, (ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 1937), WHICH IS A BRIEF BUT HIGHLY REGARDED THOMSON BIOGRAPHY…..A BOOK I NEEDED MANY YEARS AGO, BUT EITHER COULDN'T AFFORD, WHEN I DID FIND A COPY, OR ONE THAT WAS MISSING PAGES OR EVEN THE FULL COLOR IMAGES IN THE BACK. I FOUND A FINE CONDITION COPY THAT HAS ALL OF ITS PAGES, AND A NICE CLEAN GREEN CLOTH WRAPPING ON PERFECT BOARDS (COVER STOCK). NOT ONE DOG EARRED PAGE IN THE BOOK. AS AN ENTHUSIASTIC THOMSON RESEARCHER, AND COLLECTOR OF RELATED MOMENTOS (CAN'T AFFORD HIS ORIGINAL ART), IT WAS THE FIND OF 2012. IT'S LOOKING LIKE A GOOD YEAR OUT ON THE ANTIQUE HUSTINGS.

WHILE THE PICTURES HE PRODUCED BETWEEN 1913 AND 1917 REPRESENT HIS MAJOR CONTRIBUTION, THE BACKGROUND AND TRAINING FOR THIS MAGNIFICENT OUTPOURING EXPLAINS TO SOME EXTENT THE QUALITY OF HIS WORK. THOMSON LIVED AS A BOY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF GEORGIAN BAY, AND HERE HIS INBORN LOVE OF THE LAKES, WOODS AND STREAMS WAS NOURISHED THROUGHOUT HIS CHILDHOOD. HE WAS PASSIONATELY FOND OF FISHING, AND IN LATER YEARS ATTAINED AN ENVIABLE REPUTATION AS AN ANGLER EVEN AMONG THE PROFESSIONAL GUIDES OF THE (ALGONQUIN) PARK. IN THE EARLY SPRING, BEFORE THE ICE BROKE FROM THE STREAMS AND RIVERS, HE MADE HIS OWN TACKLE FROM BEADS, FEATHERS AND PIECES OF METAL, WITH THE LOVING HANDS OF A TRUE ENTHUSIAST."

The above passage was written by Canadian Artist, Albert H. Robinson, in a 1937 "Canadian Artist Series" booklet, entitled simply "Tom Thomson." Robinson had known Thomson from the graphic arts business in Toronto. He was a friend and traveling companion of painter A.Y. Jackson, and he was familiar with the other artists of the Group of Seven. It is a small but important book in the study of the early life and work of this Canadian landscape painter. The book, which has evaded me for about a dozen years, was found in the used books offered by the Gravenhurst Book Store, located on Muskoka Road. I am grateful to the book shop proprietor, for offering this wonderful piece of Canadiana. Thanks to them, I have now acquired this missing component of Thomson biography. In reality, I've been trying to acquire a "fine condition" copy of the Robinson book, but most of the books I found, in the past five years, were badly damaged, and seriously over-priced. I've been rustling-up Thomson reference material, since the mid 1990's. My personal "Thomson archives," built-up one book, one article, one document at a time, has been used extensively in four previous feature series, which have run in regional publications, primarily in the examination of the artist's mysterious death in July 1917, while traversing Algonquin Park's Canoe Lake. The little booklet was published by The Ryerson Press, of Toronto, and designed and printed by one of the best known graphics company, in Canada at the time…….Rous & Mann Limited, where many of Canada's painters got their start in the art profession. Both Thomson and Robinson came to work for Rous & Mann by 1912, leaving the Grip Co.

In 1937 when Robertson published the brief biographical text, on Thomson, accompanied by full color reproductions of the artist's best known creations, there had only been a few books and articles written about his life and art, following his sudden death. Only several months after Thomson's death, his biggest supporter, Dr. J.M. McCallum had contributed an article on his friend, to the Canadian Magazine, dated October 1917. F.B. Housser made mention of Thomson in his book, Canadian Art Movement, in 1926. In 1927, O.J. Stevenson wrote about Thomson in a text entitled "A People's Best," and in the same year, Newton MacTavish mentioned him in the book, "The Fine Arts in Canada." Blodwen Davies came next, with one of two pieces on Thomson, the first being "Paddle and Palette," in 1930, and then "Tom Thomson," in 1935. Robinson had begun the Canadian Landscape Painters in 1932. I'm still missing several of these early Thomson references, but I'm forever hopeful I can fill these in before the 100th anniversary of his death, in July 2017, when I hope to launch another series of articles on his art career in Canada.

"My first meeting with Thomson was about 1908. A tall, lanky young man in a dark blue serge suit and gray flannel shirt applied for a position in the art department of Grip Limited, where I was art director. He was clean cut, almost classical in features, with a mop of black hair combed down over his right forehead. There was something intriguing about Thomson, a quiet reserve, a reticence almost approaching bashfulness. There was no bombast or assertiveness as he handed me a bundle of his work and asked if there was an opening in the art department."

Robinson writes, "His samples consisted mostly of lettering and decorative designs applied to booklet covers and some labels. A quick glance at his drawings revealed something more than mechanical and technical proficiency; there was feeling for spacing and arrangement, an over-tone of intellectual as well as aesthetic approach to his work, and we quickly closed arrangements for him to join the staff. Shortly after hiring him, I received a gratuitous and unsolicited telephone call from his previous employer, belittling Thomson as an erratic and difficult man in a department. This was as absurd as it was untrue. Thomson was a most diligent, reliable and capable craftsman. Nothing seemed to disturb the even tenor of his way. Only once did I see him lose his temper and that was in 1912. A man under the influence of liquor got into the studio and made himself as objectionable as possible. Tom tried to continue his work, but when the visitor became personally abusive, Tom's slow temper finally rose. He took off his coat and threw the visitor out of the building. The noise of overturning chairs and tables attracted my attention, but by the time I got there, Tom was brushing imaginary dust off his hands and settling back in to finish his drawing."

"Tom Thomson possessed a complete and satisfactory world within himself." wrote Albert Robinson, adding, "He apparently did not feel any great need for human companionship, and so made friends slowly. When he joined "Grip" (graphic company in Toronto), it was some time before he found common interests with other members of the art staff. Among his fellow workers in the department, were such men as J.E.H. MacDonald, F. Horsman Varley, Frank Carmichael, Arthur Lismer, William Broadhead, Frank (Franz) Johnston, T.W. McLean, Ben Jackson, Ivor Lewis and many others. These men sketched and painted in their spare time and during their holidays. Ben Jackson was an enthusiastic fisherman who arranged his sketching trips with angling opportunities. Thomson and Jackson were soon planning trips together, lunge fishing in Scugog Lake, or trout fishing in some favorite stream known to Tom. Jackson took his paints along as a mild diversion from fishing, and on one of these trips made a sketch of Tom which now hangs in the National Gallery, Ottawa. Jackson who had fished the streams of New Brunswick, with crack fishermen from the New England states, said that he never saw anyone who could cast a fly with the ease and precision of Thomson. On some of these trips Tom began making the casual sketch, and occasionally joined other members of the staff on their sketching trips round Toronto."

There is a well known black and white photograph of Thomson fly fishing below the Tea Lake Dam, just west of Tea Lake, and Canoe Lake where Thomson resided when not on a fishing or sketching trip. Our family always stopped in at the Tea Lake dam, on our camping or day trips to the park. We have stood on those same rocks as Thomson did, in the early 1900's, and where he anchored himself, to sketch the original dam. It is a beautiful and quiet little place, that afforded him a perfect campsite to both fish and paint.

Robinson points out that, "William Broadhead, a brilliant young English artist, after listening all winter to McLean's stories of canoeing and camping in the wilds, was fired with a desire to see the country himself, and in the summer of 1911, Broadhead and Thomson set out on a canoe trip through the Mississauga Reserve, leaving the rails at Biscotasing. This was, I believe, Thomson's first experience on an extended camping trip in the north. It was also Thomson's first serious sketching trip. He brought back a number of sketches although he lost some in a canoe upset. These sketches were timid and self conscious in execution, but had caught the real northern character. I recall one in particular of drowned land which impressed me as having the weird loneliness of the country. It was on this trip also, that Thomson met Grey Owl, (before he was exposed as englishman, Archie Belaney) now known in America and Europe as author and lecturer, who visited him in Toronto the following winter."

The artist Robinson, writes of his friend Thomson, by noting a change in employment status in the Ontario printing industry. "In 1912 I became associated with Rous & Mann Limited, and several of the artists, including Thomson, followed to the new art department, where he worked until the spring of 1914. In the summer of 1912, Thomson took his first extended vacation in Algonquin Park, and brought back a series of sketches which showed a tremendous advance in technical power and purity of color. Strolling up from the station (in Toronto) in his woodsman outfit and carrying the bundle of sketches, he reported his return to work and left the sketches for inspection. We urged him to paint one of his sketches upon a large canvas. So 'A Northern Lake' came into being in 1913, his first attempt on a large canvas. It attracted the admiration of his fellow artists, and to his astonishment was purchased by the Government of Canada."

"J.E.H. MacDonald told Dr. J.M. McCallum of Toronto, about Thomson's north country sketches. The genial doctor soon looked him up and persuaded him to devote his entire time to painting. His art training had been and continued to be the association with competent painters. The few remaining years of his life he devoted whole-heartedly to painting, sketching in the spring, summer and fall, and returning to his studio "Shack" on Severn Street to work on large canvases during the winter months." wrote Robinson, adding, "The basic knowledge of design obtained through his commercial art training explains the decorative beauty of composition and arrangement which so marks his painting. In this respect, there is a common bond between Thomson and J.E.H. MacDonald. Both were eminent and capable designers, and both approached the problem of landscape painting with a finely discriminating knowledge of form and arrangement. MacDonald, however, felt the appeal of a greater variety of subject matter, while Thomson concentrated with intensity on the Northern Ontario wilderness which claimed his whole devotion. Both of these men made important contributions to Canadian painting, evolving technics which were personal and adequate and unclouded either by convention or tradition. The work of each was alive with charm of design and beauty of color."

Robinson suggested that "From year to year Thomson grew in ability to summarize, in the beauty of his color arrangements, in confidence, and brilliancy of technique. His paintings are frank and beautiful statements of the moods and inner meanings of the scenes freed of all extraneous and distracting detail. His sense of design and color wove enchantment into a sketch, never cluttering or confusing it, but rather adding a richer and more subtle significance. Thomson left probably more than four hundred sketches, perhaps twenty important canvases, with as many slighter or experimental pictures. His tragic and untimely death on Canoe Lake robbed our Dominion of a great interpreter of the Canadian wilderness - a faithful student whose sincerity, unresting passion for true and swift insight into the heart of all that was beautiful, gave him skill and power to isolate essentials, which lifted his landscapes from the purely representative to the realms of personal creative art."

It was Thomson's friend, J.E.H. MacDonald, who penned the inscription, on the plaque of the memorial cairn, on Canoe Lake's Hayhurst Point, that reads, "To the memory of Tom Thomson, artist, woodsman, and guide, who was drowned in Canoe Lake, July 8th, 1917. He lived humbly but passionately with the wild. It made him brother to all untamed things in nature. It drew him apart and revealed itself wonderfully to him. It sent him out from the woods only to show these revelations and it too him to itself at last."

For a wee bit more on Tom Thomson, please join me for tomorrow's blog. Thanks for visiting today.