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The Group of Seven · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:11
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
0:13
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, believe it or not. And
0:16
Speaker 2: this is stuff you should know. The Artsy edition.
0:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, the uh, the O Canada or the Oak Canada Edition.
0:26
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think it's a Well let me
0:28
Speaker 2: ask you this, had you heard of any of the
0:30
Speaker 2: members of the Group of Seven, we should probably just
0:32
Speaker 2: say Group of Seven is Canada's most famous art school.
0:37
Speaker 2: In that school like you go and Sydney classroom and learn,
0:39
Speaker 2: but like a group of painters who work together, influence
0:42
Speaker 2: one another, support one another, right.
0:45
Speaker 1: Like a school of fish, except a paint.
0:47
Speaker 2: Right, school of fish with paint brushes. Yeah, so like
0:53
Speaker 2: like this is these guys were working in the teens,
0:56
Speaker 2: nineteeneen's and nineteen twenties and they're still like the foundation
1:00
Speaker 2: of Canada's art right.
1:02
Speaker 1: Yeah. To answer you, I don't think I had, at
1:08
Speaker 1: least as far as name recognition, but I feel like
1:11
Speaker 1: I have seen some of these works of art before
1:14
Speaker 1: in my many museum visits.
1:17
Speaker 2: I didn't recognize any of them. But I have to say,
1:19
Speaker 2: at first, I'm not a big fan of like nineteen
1:23
Speaker 2: twenties thirties in particular esthetic. There's a lot of brown
1:28
Speaker 2: and yeah, just dark stuff. But I actually, just from
1:33
Speaker 2: researching this and looking at more and more of their paintings,
1:36
Speaker 2: I actually did become a fan of that school, but
1:39
Speaker 2: a couple of them in particular.
1:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, I really like this stuff. It's not the kind
1:45
Speaker 1: of thing that personally I would like hang in my house,
1:48
Speaker 1: because that's just not my house aesthetic that we're cultivating.
1:52
Speaker 1: But I really enjoy these landscapes of the northern realm
1:58
Speaker 1: of Canada, which is where as you'll see shortly, they
2:01
Speaker 1: mainly concentrated on the sort of woodlands north of the
2:05
Speaker 1: major cities and to some criticism, kind of ignoring the
2:10
Speaker 1: beautiful coastlines of Canada.
2:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, and even the central prairies too.
2:14
Speaker 1: Yeah. So it was this pretty specific thing. Seven sometimes six,
2:19
Speaker 1: sometimes eight, sometimes ten, oh as many as ten.
2:22
Speaker 2: I think there was ten overall.
2:24
Speaker 1: Okay, that kind of came and went, some passed on,
2:28
Speaker 1: some were fringe members that they were like, you're really
2:30
Speaker 1: one of us, but maybe not an official group of
2:32
Speaker 1: seven zero woman, Yeah, and in her case for sure.
2:38
Speaker 1: But yeah, so let's let's dig into this, okay.
2:41
Speaker 2: So we said that the Group of seven kind of
2:44
Speaker 2: formed the foundation of Canada's artistic identity. And there's a
2:50
Speaker 2: number of reasons why, like really solid reasons why that
2:52
Speaker 2: go well beyond these these guys artistic abilities, which makes
2:57
Speaker 2: the whole thing that much more interesting if you ask me.
3:00
Speaker 2: But one of the reasons why is because they came
3:03
Speaker 2: together and started painting Canada's wilderness, in particular at a
3:08
Speaker 2: time when Canada was looking to develop its national identity,
3:12
Speaker 2: because it wasn't until eighteen sixty seven that Canada formed
3:16
Speaker 2: the Dominion of Canada with the Province of Canada which
3:20
Speaker 2: is now Ontario and Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick,
3:24
Speaker 2: and then I think of five years later they brought
3:27
Speaker 2: BC into the mix. But that's what rushed things about
3:30
Speaker 2: when they sing about marching to Bastille day aboard the
3:34
Speaker 2: Thailand Express.
3:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. And that's you know, they were trying, like
3:38
Speaker 1: you said, to form a national identity sort of d Angliz, Yeah,
3:46
Speaker 1: can get something you do in a kitchen, actually, right,
3:50
Speaker 1: d anglies And you know, in other words, shake off
3:52
Speaker 1: a bit of that Britishness that lingered on both, you know, politically, economically,
3:59
Speaker 1: and as we'll see are artistically. Their formal formation started
4:03
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty, but as you said, they were pretty
4:09
Speaker 1: well acquainted with each other in the nineteen tens and
4:12
Speaker 1: nineteen teens. Most of them were living in and around Toronto, Canada. Toronto, Canada,
4:20
Speaker 1: don't I get bagged on for saying that.
4:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, like Atlanta, USA.
4:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. We're doing our best. Still. We love
4:27
Speaker 1: Canada and they love us, so they forgive us of
4:30
Speaker 1: these indiscretions.
4:31
Speaker 2: Most of them love us, for sure.
4:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, some of them don't. But you know, there's people
4:35
Speaker 1: everywhere that don't like us.
4:36
Speaker 2: I don't agree with that.
4:39
Speaker 1: Where are some places where everybody likes us?
4:41
Speaker 2: Germany?
4:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, Germans dooth tend to like us, huh.
4:45
Speaker 2: Australia. I don't think there's a single Australian that doesn't
4:48
Speaker 2: like us.
4:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you're right. And there were a couple
4:51
Speaker 1: of key sort of employment places and institutions that kind
4:58
Speaker 1: of helped foster this cohesiveness. One was a design firm
5:02
Speaker 1: called the Grip because most of these, if not all
5:05
Speaker 1: of them, at some point worked for the Grip as
5:07
Speaker 1: commercial designers. And they had a manager there named Albert
5:10
Speaker 1: Robson that really or Robesen maybe, who helped sort of
5:14
Speaker 1: foster their outside art, not outsider art, different thing, but
5:18
Speaker 1: just saying like, hey, we love your design work, and
5:20
Speaker 1: you should also do this other stuff because all boats
5:22
Speaker 1: will rise. And then a place called the Arts and
5:24
Speaker 1: Letters Club, which was a private club, a social club
5:27
Speaker 1: for men and for artists in particular, so they would
5:30
Speaker 1: get together with other Canadian musicians and writers and actors there.
5:35
Speaker 1: They had patrons there that could they could get a
5:37
Speaker 1: little juice to help support themselves, right, And those two
5:41
Speaker 1: places were sort of the nuclei of which they spun around.
5:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, And there was actually a person who you could
5:50
Speaker 2: kind of point to as the nuclei of the group,
5:53
Speaker 2: in part because he was the oldest of them. Apparently
5:56
Speaker 2: he was a father figure to some of the younger ones.
5:59
Speaker 2: But his name was J. E. H. McDonald and he
6:02
Speaker 2: was originally born in the UK and he moved to
6:04
Speaker 2: Ontario when he was a teenager. And he was the
6:08
Speaker 2: first one to work at the Grip all the way
6:09
Speaker 2: back in eighteen ninety five. And by the time most
6:13
Speaker 2: of the other members of the group of seven got
6:15
Speaker 2: their jobs at the Grip, he was already head designer.
6:19
Speaker 2: One of the things that kind of differentiated him and
6:21
Speaker 2: made it not surprising but noteworthy and remarkable that he
6:26
Speaker 2: was kind of the center or the head of the
6:29
Speaker 2: group of seven is that part of being a member
6:32
Speaker 2: of the group of seven was getting out there in nature,
6:35
Speaker 2: in rugged country that was way far away from the cities,
6:39
Speaker 2: and really, you know, like most of the people in Canada,
6:42
Speaker 2: in the towns did not go north at that point,
6:46
Speaker 2: so it was a pretty kind of rebellious thing to do.
6:49
Speaker 1: And J. H.
6:49
Speaker 2: McDonald was always kind of frail. He was prone to
6:53
Speaker 2: falling ill very easily. So he didn't make it on
6:56
Speaker 2: all of these excursions. And yet he was doing as
6:59
Speaker 2: good a work because any of them, if not better
7:01
Speaker 2: in my opinion. In some cases, yeah.
7:04
Speaker 1: His stuff is pretty great. He was a trans and dentalist.
7:06
Speaker 1: Though he was he just got sick a lot, and
7:09
Speaker 1: as we'll see, he died fairly young. And he kept
7:12
Speaker 1: trying to tell everyone like, I really love this stuff.
7:14
Speaker 1: I'm not an indoor kid. I promise, I just can't
7:17
Speaker 1: go bushwhacking this weekend.
7:18
Speaker 2: We have one more thing about him too. I don't
7:21
Speaker 2: know if you saw this or not, But he had
7:23
Speaker 2: a painting called Missed Fantasy. Huh that appears in the
7:27
Speaker 2: shining in the background.
7:30
Speaker 1: Of which scene you know? Is it the famous office
7:33
Speaker 1: interview scene.
7:34
Speaker 2: It's in the fireplace room. Oh okay, and then I
7:38
Speaker 2: think it's also I think it also moves and is
7:42
Speaker 2: in like the main lobby where mister Olman is giving
7:46
Speaker 2: Jack like the beginning of the tour.
7:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, so one of those from that documentary that probably
7:52
Speaker 1: means something very significant.
7:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, that painting's moving around. That's where I learned about
7:55
Speaker 2: it from. I screamed two three seven and that's eye
7:59
Speaker 2: screen two three seven dot com, which, Man, if you
8:03
Speaker 2: want a deep dive into just Missed Fantasy and what
8:07
Speaker 2: it means, just start there. Yeah.
8:09
Speaker 1: Okay. There was another guy named and these are we're
8:12
Speaker 1: going to kind of jump around as far as introducing
8:14
Speaker 1: these people, or I guess it's not jumping around because
8:16
Speaker 1: it's fairly chronological, okay, but these are sort of the
8:19
Speaker 1: pre dudes before it was official McDonald's. One was a
8:23
Speaker 1: guy named Tom Thompson. He passed away before the group
8:28
Speaker 1: was officially founded in nineteen seventeen. It was founded in
8:31
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty. Like I said, so he was never an
8:33
Speaker 1: official member, but he was a really influential guy in
8:37
Speaker 1: that he was a one of just a few Native Canadians.
8:41
Speaker 1: He was born. I believe he was born in Ontario,
8:45
Speaker 1: in rural Ontario. Big time outdoorsman also worked at the
8:50
Speaker 1: Grip in nineteen oh eight. I don't think I mentioned
8:53
Speaker 1: I mentioned they were designed for him, but they mainly
8:54
Speaker 1: worked on designed for department stores, so I guess early
8:58
Speaker 1: Canadian department stores. And it was at the firm where
9:02
Speaker 1: he met McDonald and they were like, hey, we should
9:05
Speaker 1: like get together and start going out in the woods
9:09
Speaker 1: and sketching and painting.
9:11
Speaker 2: Yeah. So apparently Tom Thompson. So he's one of Canada's
9:14
Speaker 2: most famous artists by far. He must have been inherently
9:19
Speaker 2: likable because I read that he hung around the Arts
9:21
Speaker 2: and Letters Club even though he wasn't a member. They
9:23
Speaker 2: didn't check him out. All of the members who met
9:27
Speaker 2: him of the Group of seven took him under their
9:29
Speaker 2: wing because he was a really talented artist but didn't
9:33
Speaker 2: have any formal training. So he introduced the Group of
9:36
Speaker 2: seven to the wilderness that became like the basis of
9:39
Speaker 2: all of their paintings and their whole school and they
9:42
Speaker 2: taught him in turn formal techniques.
9:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty cool.
9:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he actually is well. See he died young
9:48
Speaker 2: at thirty nine, and his career was very short. It
9:52
Speaker 2: was five years. But in that five years he painted
9:56
Speaker 2: fifty canvases and left behind four hundred sketches and he
9:59
Speaker 2: got really good and sadly he died just as he
10:03
Speaker 2: was really starting to get going.
10:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, that was definitely a sad thing because
10:09
Speaker 1: he was just getting cooking. I feel like, yep, for sure,
10:12
Speaker 1: there's got him Lauren Harris law r e n. He
10:17
Speaker 1: may be the second. I mean, I don't want to
10:19
Speaker 1: judge how famous they are, but he seemed to be
10:21
Speaker 1: pretty famous. He notably, I think, has sold at auction
10:26
Speaker 1: the most valuable painting ever from a Canadian artist, at
10:30
Speaker 1: eleven million bucks. It was called Mountain Forms, And I
10:34
Speaker 1: like the painting. It looks quite a bit different, I
10:36
Speaker 1: think than a lot of this other stuff as far
10:39
Speaker 1: as steering away from like a Van go like post
10:44
Speaker 1: impressionistic look. It looks a little more graphic designing. But
10:50
Speaker 1: it's super cool. But you know, eleven million bucks. I
10:52
Speaker 1: know Steve Martin's a big fan, yes, because he went
10:54
Speaker 1: to some show of his ia on YouTube and was
10:56
Speaker 1: kind of going on about his love for Harris.
11:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, he mounted a touring exhibition back in twenty fifteen,
11:03
Speaker 2: Like he's a big Superquan and one of the others.
11:05
Speaker 2: And Harris is a really good example of this. A
11:08
Speaker 2: lot of people consider Lauren Harris the first abstract painter
11:12
Speaker 2: in Canada, and you can kind of make a pretty
11:15
Speaker 2: good example that the Group of Seven represents the transition
11:21
Speaker 2: from traditional painting to modern painting. They're the kind of
11:25
Speaker 2: portal that it goes through in Canada, and it's really
11:29
Speaker 2: neat to see their early work before they all kind
11:31
Speaker 2: of came together, and then to see starting about nineteen nineteen,
11:36
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty, all of them start to kind of resemble
11:40
Speaker 2: one another, even though it's very distinct and different, you
11:43
Speaker 2: can see that kind of through line that really did
11:46
Speaker 2: make them like a cohesive school.
11:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think that's kind of the point.
11:51
Speaker 1: I don't even think that stuff is necessarily done on purpose.
11:54
Speaker 1: I think similar sensibilities hanging out with each.
11:57
Speaker 2: Other, ripping each other off, ripping each other.
12:00
Speaker 1: Going to place, you know, the same places you know,
12:02
Speaker 1: as we'll see that went on these excursions, and this guy,
12:05
Speaker 1: he was one of the more adventurous ones. He went
12:07
Speaker 1: as far as the Arctic to paint, you know, in
12:11
Speaker 1: the colder climbs, including that eleven million dollar work as
12:15
Speaker 1: a snowcap mountain. But he was a rich kid. He
12:19
Speaker 1: was even though he was born in Ontario. He was
12:21
Speaker 1: the heir to a British fortune from the Massy Harris
12:25
Speaker 1: company that made agricultural equipment, so they're still around. He
12:29
Speaker 1: didn't have to you know, there's no other way to
12:31
Speaker 1: say it. He didn't really have to work to support
12:34
Speaker 1: himself as an artist, so he was very free to
12:36
Speaker 1: do his thing.
12:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he was a very dedicated artist too, so
12:39
Speaker 2: he wasn't just like I don't feel like doing anything today.
12:44
Speaker 1: He was for some days.
12:44
Speaker 2: He was also heavy into spiritualism, which was pretty predominant
12:49
Speaker 2: at the time. Remember, Yeah, we did a whole episode
12:51
Speaker 2: on that. And so if you put together McDonald's transcendentalism,
12:58
Speaker 2: Tom Thompson's Exposure of Everybody to the woods Canadian forests,
13:05
Speaker 2: and then Lauren Harris's non spirit or non religious spiritualism,
13:10
Speaker 2: those kind of form like that. Ethosthys I can remember
13:15
Speaker 2: which one it is. I remember one time I said
13:18
Speaker 2: ethos and we were on a zoom call with Scott
13:21
Speaker 2: Ackerman and he just kind of said, almost to himself, like, wow,
13:24
Speaker 2: you got both vowels wrong.
13:26
Speaker 1: Did he really?
13:26
Speaker 2: Yeah? He did in no way.
13:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the kind of thing that sticks.
13:30
Speaker 2: With you for sure. I'll never forget it. But I
13:32
Speaker 2: still don't remember which way to say it.
13:34
Speaker 1: I thought it was always ethos, So according to Scott Ackerman,
13:37
Speaker 1: it would be ethos, ethos ethos. Yeah, but if you
13:41
Speaker 1: said ethos, you didn't get both wrong.
13:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, So so I said no ethos I think is yeah. Wow, Okay,
13:52
Speaker 2: I think that was it. Regardless, I still don't say
13:55
Speaker 2: it right, I'm sure, and if I do, it's accidental.
13:58
Speaker 2: People know what I'm saying exactly. Yeah, you're Josh Clark.
14:02
Speaker 2: We're known for mispronouncing. We really are.
14:05
Speaker 1: So before they got together as a group again, which
14:09
Speaker 1: was nineteen twenty, they took a pretty formidable trip in
14:14
Speaker 1: May of nineteen twelve, when Thompson and another staff member
14:18
Speaker 1: at the GRIP named Harry B. Jackson took this train
14:23
Speaker 1: from Toronto to the Algonquin Provincial Park, or to Algonquin
14:28
Speaker 1: Provincial Park. There's no d there and they just started sketching. Again.
14:33
Speaker 1: Like you said, at the time, you know, you had
14:36
Speaker 1: to be pretty adventurous to start venturing into those wild climbs.
14:41
Speaker 1: It was rough and rugged territory. So certainly there probably
14:45
Speaker 1: were not a lot of artists doing that. I mean
14:47
Speaker 1: there were There's have always been Canadian men and women
14:50
Speaker 1: who were like, yeah, I'm very comfortable out there and
14:54
Speaker 1: it doesn't scare me. But I think artists to be
14:56
Speaker 1: going out there was a pretty radical thing.
14:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, these guys are They were rebels
15:01
Speaker 2: in their time. You just got to kind of remember that,
15:03
Speaker 2: even though retrospectively now you're like, what's a big deal,
15:07
Speaker 2: But yeah, at the time, this is all very new.
15:10
Speaker 2: It was very big and also, as we'll see, they
15:12
Speaker 2: were basically making like in your face style of art
15:17
Speaker 2: that just was not the taste of Canada at the time.
15:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, they spent a lot of time in that park,
15:23
Speaker 1: and specifically Thompson at a certain point he was spending
15:26
Speaker 1: you know, eight months out of the year there. He
15:29
Speaker 1: left in the winter finally because it was pretty rough,
15:32
Speaker 1: but he really really loved Algonquin Provincial Park, and I
15:36
Speaker 1: think they even like the media initially started calling them
15:40
Speaker 1: the Algonquin School before they settled on a name, and
15:44
Speaker 1: some really beautiful paintings came out of that pre nineteen
15:47
Speaker 1: twenty formation.
15:49
Speaker 2: Yeah. The jack Pine is a very very famous painting
15:53
Speaker 2: in Canada that was by Tom Thompson, I think from
15:58
Speaker 2: nineteen sixteen. It's basically when he started it. But you
16:02
Speaker 2: can really clearly see the Art Nouveau influence that he
16:05
Speaker 2: developed as a commercial graphic designer.
16:10
Speaker 1: Yeah.
16:10
Speaker 2: Another one is a Y Jackson's The Red Maple. I
16:14
Speaker 2: like A Y Jackson's work, but I don't like the
16:16
Speaker 2: Red Maple, but it's about equally famous as the jack
16:19
Speaker 2: Pine in Canada.
16:20
Speaker 1: I like that one too, Again, not for my house,
16:22
Speaker 1: but I would dive into it in a museum with Gusto.
16:26
Speaker 2: They would not like that. The security guards would be
16:28
Speaker 2: on you, like white on rice.
16:31
Speaker 1: Oh. Sometimes I just want to touch those Oh.
16:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't do it. It's like the call of
16:36
Speaker 2: the void.
16:38
Speaker 1: It is a call of the void. Or yeah, I
16:40
Speaker 1: could either touch the painting in the Guggenheim or pull
16:44
Speaker 1: the gun out of the cops holder to his security
16:46
Speaker 1: at the Guggenheim.
16:50
Speaker 2: So one of the things that these guys did too
16:52
Speaker 2: that was pretty smart is they got out there in
16:54
Speaker 2: the wilderness. But it's not like they set up their
16:57
Speaker 2: easels and were just sitting there painting the final paintings
17:00
Speaker 2: that they showed to the public. They would do kind
17:03
Speaker 2: of sketches. Tom Thompson was apparently very good and prolific
17:07
Speaker 2: at it. I saw that he captured transient moments of
17:10
Speaker 2: light and atmosphere by making these sketches out in the
17:15
Speaker 2: actual like seeing the actual thing and then just kind
17:17
Speaker 2: of bringing it back and translating that into the actual
17:20
Speaker 2: finished canvas. And all of them basically did that. But yeah,
17:23
Speaker 2: something about Tom Thompson's eye being translated to color and
17:29
Speaker 2: texture in his paintings was really it was really something.
17:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. One of my favorite things now. And
17:36
Speaker 1: I've noticed this because did I tell you Emily started painting.
17:39
Speaker 2: No, how awesome what medium.
17:43
Speaker 1: Paint on canvas? Oil? Mainly? Oh wow, she dabbled in
17:47
Speaker 1: watercolor a little bit, but she's mainly painting oil on canvas,
17:49
Speaker 1: And like she's good, and it's it's sort of like
17:52
Speaker 1: surprising and annoying. It's like, oh, okay, so you can
17:55
Speaker 1: actually paint. That's that's super cool. Yeah, but it's she
18:01
Speaker 1: started to you know, now they make these little travel
18:04
Speaker 1: kits that or you can do your own in like
18:06
Speaker 1: an Altoy ten of you know, very small little paint
18:09
Speaker 1: sets that can like fit inside of a notebook, and
18:13
Speaker 1: she takes them along and we'll just paint little things
18:16
Speaker 1: or sketch little things and in nature, because that's mainly
18:19
Speaker 1: what she's painting. And we went on this last trip
18:22
Speaker 1: when we went to New York to see Guling Gary
18:24
Speaker 1: Glenn Ross, which was awesome. By the way, we went
18:28
Speaker 1: to the New York Botanical Gardens for the first time
18:30
Speaker 1: in the Bronx we had been to Brooklyn's and I
18:32
Speaker 1: noticed there were artists just everywhere, sitting on benches, sketching
18:36
Speaker 1: and painting stuff around them, and it's it's just such
18:38
Speaker 1: a lovely thing to witness because it's just so quiet
18:41
Speaker 1: and peaceful, and they're creating art inside of, you know,
18:43
Speaker 1: the natural wonder of nature's art, and I just I
18:46
Speaker 1: just love it.
18:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, I envy that. I admire it too. I've always
18:50
Speaker 2: wanted to be able to at least draw too. I mean,
18:53
Speaker 2: can't do any kid. I was friends with like artists
18:56
Speaker 2: that could draw like real like it was. They were
18:58
Speaker 2: just natural talents at it, and I would just try, try,
19:01
Speaker 2: try and take classes and I just couldn't do it.
19:05
Speaker 1: I couldn't either. My whole family. My father wasn't, but
19:08
Speaker 1: my mother is an artist and an art major and
19:10
Speaker 1: a painter. My brother could always draw. I believe my
19:13
Speaker 1: sister could draw, and I can't draw a stick figure.
19:16
Speaker 2: That's all right? Yeah, I was gonna say, anybody who's
19:18
Speaker 2: seen my drawing of a horse on Instagram knows that
19:21
Speaker 2: I can.
19:22
Speaker 1: That was better than what I could do, I think.
19:24
Speaker 2: Oh. Also, by the way, if Emily's making art kits
19:27
Speaker 2: out of Altoyd tins, that makes her a Tentovator.
19:30
Speaker 1: Chuck, Well, she's not doing that. She bought a kit,
19:33
Speaker 1: but from a Tivator. I will not be a Tnovator
19:36
Speaker 1: because of that episode. Can we just get that one off?
19:41
Speaker 1: Can we scrub that?
19:42
Speaker 2: I'm sure we can. Should we also do scuba cat? Yeah?
19:46
Speaker 1: Those are two that really should go away?
19:49
Speaker 2: So yeah, well we'll look into that. We'll have to
19:51
Speaker 2: ask Jerry.
19:52
Speaker 1: Should we take a break?
19:53
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I guess we should. We kind of got
19:55
Speaker 2: away from ourselves, so.
19:56
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a break. We're gonna ask Jerry
19:58
Speaker 1: if we can scrub a couple of episodes. That means
20:00
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to do two more at the end
20:01
Speaker 1: of our career. Of course, that's fine, because we don't
20:04
Speaker 1: want to short change ourselves. So we'll debate all that
20:07
Speaker 1: and then we'll be back to talk more about the
20:09
Speaker 1: Group of Seven.
20:36
Speaker 2: So I think, with the exception chuck of Tom Thompson,
20:39
Speaker 2: all of the rest of the Group of seven artists,
20:41
Speaker 2: all of them over the years, even went and studied
20:45
Speaker 2: in Europe at some point or another. They were formally trained.
20:48
Speaker 2: I read that Lauren Harris was encouraged by his math
20:53
Speaker 2: professor to study art in Berlin. Now I'm guessing then
20:57
Speaker 2: that he wasn't very good at math. Right, you like
21:02
Speaker 2: to draw, you play the piano, and I think, can
21:04
Speaker 2: you do anything? Yeah. But when they were trained in Europe,
21:09
Speaker 2: this is the time of the Impressionists. They were trained
21:11
Speaker 2: in traditional conservative landscapes, and they brought all that back.
21:18
Speaker 2: But they found, to their dismay that they were having
21:21
Speaker 2: a really hard time translating the European techniques that they
21:26
Speaker 2: had learned to the Canadian wilderness. It just wasn't working
21:29
Speaker 2: quite right. And there was a really big, important turning
21:33
Speaker 2: point that happened in nineteen twelve when Lauren Harris and j. E. H.
21:38
Speaker 2: MacDonald traveled to Buffalo, New York to see an art
21:42
Speaker 2: exhibition of Scandinavian artists and they were just blown away.
21:46
Speaker 2: It completely freed them to create the art that went
21:51
Speaker 2: on to become synonymous with them. And I saw that.
21:54
Speaker 2: I think McDonald said that these were artists that were
21:58
Speaker 2: not trying to express themselves so much as they were
22:01
Speaker 2: trying to express something that took hold of themselves.
22:03
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
22:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, So these guys were like overwhelmed with nature and
22:08
Speaker 2: they were painting the feeling that nature brought out in them.
22:11
Speaker 2: And that's what the group of seven started doing.
22:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's cool. I know. Van Go is another inspiration,
22:17
Speaker 1: in particular from the European school, and that a technique
22:20
Speaker 1: that I really love, the imposto technique where you just
22:24
Speaker 1: goop that paint on there so you see the brushstrokes,
22:28
Speaker 1: and in the case of some of these artists and
22:30
Speaker 1: Mango and of course many others, it's you know, when
22:33
Speaker 1: you get up close to these paintings, don't touch, but
22:35
Speaker 1: you can lean in and get a really good look
22:37
Speaker 1: at just how caked on it is in some places.
22:41
Speaker 1: I just really really love that.
22:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, And if you're really sly, you can kind of
22:45
Speaker 2: touch it with the tip of your nose and just
22:46
Speaker 2: be like, oops, I got too close. Yeah, sorry, Yeah,
22:50
Speaker 2: that Jack Pine Thompson's Jackpine. If you look at the
22:55
Speaker 2: sky or the lake, you can really see his use
22:58
Speaker 2: of that. It's really it's a really cool painting. I'm
23:01
Speaker 2: just gonna say it again.
23:03
Speaker 1: Agreed. Another. You know something I've learned a lot more
23:06
Speaker 1: having known an artist in my adulthood is that a
23:10
Speaker 1: big part of doing your art is just having a
23:12
Speaker 1: space to do it. Not everyone can just set up
23:14
Speaker 1: in their dining room or whatever, and so studio space
23:18
Speaker 1: is cherished and not. It's sometimes hard to come by,
23:21
Speaker 1: sometimes too expensive, and so patrons are very important in
23:24
Speaker 1: that regards. And there was a guy named doctor James
23:27
Speaker 1: McCallum who built a building along with Harris, I think
23:31
Speaker 1: funded by James McCollum. It's called the Studio Building in
23:34
Speaker 1: the Rosedale neighborhood of Toronto, and that was a real
23:37
Speaker 1: sort of cohesion cohesive thing. Cohesion unit, is that a
23:45
Speaker 1: thing yeah, like a rank leader. Yeah, it was like
23:48
Speaker 1: two units of cohesion when they built that building.
23:51
Speaker 2: For sure, which is not there anymore. Unfortunately, I think
23:53
Speaker 2: they built a high rise apartment over it. They tore
23:57
Speaker 2: it down first and then built the high rise apartment.
23:59
Speaker 2: But during the time, I think, well into the fifties,
24:02
Speaker 2: this was still a thriving artist studio and it was
24:06
Speaker 2: cheap apartments as well. I saw that Tom Thompson was
24:11
Speaker 2: so broke that he couldn't even afford the subsidized rent
24:17
Speaker 2: for the artists apartment at the at the studio. So
24:22
Speaker 2: again he was so likable. James McCallum built him a
24:25
Speaker 2: shed out back and charged him a dollar a month
24:27
Speaker 2: for it.
24:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they would you know, Canadians are known for
24:31
Speaker 1: being nice, but they would bag on them. They'd say, man,
24:33
Speaker 1: you're so broke you can't pay attention.
24:36
Speaker 2: That's a good one.
24:37
Speaker 1: And then they all started coming up with it, you know,
24:38
Speaker 1: you're so broken joke.
24:39
Speaker 2: How have I made it almost forty nine years without
24:42
Speaker 2: having heard that one?
24:43
Speaker 1: Have you not heard that one? No, that's the only
24:46
Speaker 1: broke one I know. But yeah, I introduced Ruby that
24:49
Speaker 1: whole that. You know, those kind of jokes it burns
24:53
Speaker 1: your mama jokes and stuff that, you know, playground burns.
24:56
Speaker 1: It's pretty fun, for sure. Your mama is so old
25:00
Speaker 1: she owes Jesus and Nickel. Wow, did you ever hear
25:03
Speaker 1: that one?
25:03
Speaker 2: No? Wow, I really wasn't paying attention on the playground.
25:07
Speaker 1: Apparently I couldn't make these up. Of course, I was
25:10
Speaker 1: just trying to copy the great artists of the playground.
25:13
Speaker 2: For sure. But I mean I still haven't heard them.
25:15
Speaker 2: And you say them just beautifully.
25:17
Speaker 1: I appreciate. I got a lot more. I'll trot them
25:18
Speaker 1: out here and there.
25:19
Speaker 2: Moving forward, kid, kid, So we talked about Tom Thompson
25:23
Speaker 2: dying and this is a really big deal, right it was.
25:27
Speaker 1: Another big deal was World War One? Oh yeah, that
25:30
Speaker 1: came along, and you know, was a big disruption because
25:33
Speaker 1: a lot of it certainly delayed the formation, the official
25:36
Speaker 1: formation of the group right there in the late nineteen teens.
25:41
Speaker 1: But a lot of them actually served in the war
25:44
Speaker 1: in some capacity. A lot of them worked for the
25:48
Speaker 1: Canadian War Memorials Fund, and they were producing art about
25:53
Speaker 1: the war, some of which was super cool. I don't
25:57
Speaker 1: know if we should talk about it now or later,
25:59
Speaker 1: but the well, maybe let's hang onto that. Okay, put
26:03
Speaker 1: a dazzle camouflage. Yeah, Arthur Listmer stuff. But yeah, we'll
26:08
Speaker 1: hold on to that.
26:09
Speaker 2: It is cool. So yeah. One of the things that
26:12
Speaker 2: I think also cemented Tom Thompson's reputation as one of
26:15
Speaker 2: Canada's most famous artists is that he died under what
26:19
Speaker 2: some people consider mysterious causes. Like this guy was born
26:23
Speaker 2: in rural Ontario. He was an avid outdoorsman. He spent
26:27
Speaker 2: so much time up in the Canada, the Canadian forests
26:31
Speaker 2: I guess around Algonquin or Algoma, that he would be
26:35
Speaker 2: a fishing guide. Sometimes he served as a park ranger.
26:38
Speaker 2: He was just there so he might as well do
26:41
Speaker 2: that extra stuff. And he went out one day in
26:43
Speaker 2: a canoe and his canoe was found overturned later that
26:46
Speaker 2: day or the next day, and he was missing. His
26:49
Speaker 2: body was found I think eight days later, and he
26:54
Speaker 2: had like a bump and a bruise on the side
26:56
Speaker 2: of his face. And some people are like, well, yeah,
26:58
Speaker 2: he just stood up in the canoe and like fell
27:01
Speaker 2: out and like hit his head and then drowned. And
27:04
Speaker 2: other people are like, you didn't know Tom Thompson then,
27:06
Speaker 2: because number one, he would never do something that stupid
27:09
Speaker 2: and number two see number one.
27:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's hard to tell how fishy that
27:17
Speaker 1: might have been. It very well could have been an accident,
27:19
Speaker 1: but it's also very easy to say, like an experience
27:22
Speaker 1: outdoorsment like that wouldn't have died that way, But it
27:25
Speaker 1: was officially declared an accidental drowning. Some people theorize that
27:29
Speaker 1: he may have killed himself if he wasn't murdered, because
27:33
Speaker 1: he got his girlfriend pregnant, But I couldn't really see
27:37
Speaker 1: a lot of like solid evidence other than just people surmising.
27:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was like one or two people over the
27:43
Speaker 2: years who wrote a book or something like that and
27:46
Speaker 2: kept the whole thing alive. Yeah, but it was a
27:50
Speaker 2: really big deal to the group of seven. They hadn't
27:53
Speaker 2: even formed yet, and they lost to one of their
27:55
Speaker 2: members already, and this was the guy who introduced them
27:58
Speaker 2: to the wild. He was in inpherently likable guy. They
28:01
Speaker 2: were really bummed out about it, but they still carried on,
28:06
Speaker 2: you know, I think, at least in part out of
28:09
Speaker 2: tribute to Tom Thompson, but also because they had really
28:12
Speaker 2: come to appreciate what he introduced them.
28:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure. That also led to another sort
28:19
Speaker 1: of if not tragedy like setback when McDonald was helping
28:25
Speaker 1: to build a memorial cairn at the at Canoe Lake
28:29
Speaker 1: where he died and McDonald collapsed because you know, as
28:32
Speaker 1: we said, he was a pretty frail guy. May have
28:34
Speaker 1: had a stroke, but recovered within a few months, well
28:38
Speaker 1: enough at least that he was able to go on
28:42
Speaker 1: this painting trip you mentioned Algoma in Ontario. They went there.
28:48
Speaker 1: Frank Johnston, who was he would be another one of
28:51
Speaker 1: the ogs as far as the group members go, and
28:55
Speaker 1: doctor McCollum, who funded that studio, they all went along
28:57
Speaker 1: on this trip.
28:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they went on box car journeys because Laurence
29:02
Speaker 2: so cool. Yeah, Laurence Harris was so rich. He went
29:05
Speaker 2: to one of the railroads and said, hey, give us
29:07
Speaker 2: a box car, will you, And they said, sure, mister Harris,
29:10
Speaker 2: whatever you want. So they took a box car and
29:14
Speaker 2: outfitted it, refurbished it with to basically turn it into
29:17
Speaker 2: a traveling studio and arts quarters.
29:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like super cool. I mean that had
29:22
Speaker 1: a stove that had furniture and they could move it
29:25
Speaker 1: around to the different rail sidings and hang out and stay.
29:30
Speaker 1: Then had a little home base there with some warm
29:33
Speaker 1: some warmth warmth to it, sure, And the Wild River
29:37
Speaker 1: was painted there, which is one of McDonald's biggest, most
29:40
Speaker 1: popular paintings, and that was in nineteen nineteen, and it
29:43
Speaker 1: is very gorgeous as well.
29:45
Speaker 2: It is I don't remember that one. I had so
29:48
Speaker 2: many tabs open and looked at so much heart that
29:50
Speaker 2: I couldn't remember that. But I don't think there was
29:53
Speaker 2: many paintings that I was like, oh, that's a real dog.
29:56
Speaker 1: Right, except for that one painting of the dog, the
29:59
Speaker 1: real one.
30:02
Speaker 2: So by this time nineteen nineteen's rolling around, they've been
30:06
Speaker 2: on box car journeys, they've lost Tom Thompson, they've gone
30:10
Speaker 2: out in the wild a few times. They've really kind
30:12
Speaker 2: of gotten into this new modernist interpretation of landscapes, specifically
30:18
Speaker 2: Canadian landscapes, to basically create this new art identity of Canada.
30:25
Speaker 2: It's like a nationalistic art movement. And they mounted their
30:30
Speaker 2: first exhibition from at least one or more of those
30:34
Speaker 2: box car journeys, and I think there was something like
30:37
Speaker 2: two hundred canvases and it did not go over all
30:42
Speaker 2: that well.
30:42
Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, I mean there were some critics who didn't
30:46
Speaker 1: love it. Some people did like it, but that was
30:50
Speaker 1: just a key exhibition because it was their first one
30:53
Speaker 1: as a group. And that was when and this is
30:56
Speaker 1: in nineteen nineteen. That's when within the group they were like,
30:58
Speaker 1: you know, we should official, like call ourselves a school
31:02
Speaker 1: and form an official like the Avengers. We need to
31:04
Speaker 1: get together and be an official group because it'll probably
31:07
Speaker 1: just help our reputation, get us a little more press. Yeah,
31:11
Speaker 1: in February March of nineteen twenty, they did. So. Jackson
31:15
Speaker 1: was not there. He was on one of his sketching
31:17
Speaker 1: trips at the time, and he came home and said
31:19
Speaker 1: that he learned that it had been formed and that
31:22
Speaker 1: I was a member.
31:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, we haven't met Jackson yet. This is a different
31:25
Speaker 2: Jackson than the one that went on that first trip
31:27
Speaker 2: with Tom Thompson. This was a Jackson.
31:30
Speaker 1: Well we introduced him, Oh we did.
31:33
Speaker 2: I didn't remember that.
31:34
Speaker 1: Because I almost made the joke that did they call him.
31:37
Speaker 2: A yeah A but I didn't like the funds.
31:40
Speaker 1: Yeah a y Jackson who actually he lived I think
31:43
Speaker 1: the longest. Yeah, he lived all the way until nineteen
31:46
Speaker 1: seventy four, ripe old age. He was born in Montreal,
31:52
Speaker 1: had a single mom, with six or five other siblings
31:55
Speaker 1: total six and as a result he had to work
31:58
Speaker 1: a lot to support his family. But eventually he found
32:01
Speaker 1: his way to Europe, where he was one of the ones,
32:03
Speaker 1: like you said, that studied like formally in Europe, which
32:06
Speaker 1: he did in France before he moved back to Ontario
32:09
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirteen.
32:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, and thanks to doctor James McCollum, he was able
32:14
Speaker 2: to move to Toronto because he was not very well
32:17
Speaker 2: off at the time, and McCollum said, how about this,
32:20
Speaker 2: I will buy all of your paintings that you produce
32:23
Speaker 2: in a year to keep you afloat essentially, and that
32:27
Speaker 2: gave A. Y Jackson the ability to come to Toronto,
32:29
Speaker 2: start working six hundred things right and make a name
32:32
Speaker 2: for himself in time to be able to support himself
32:35
Speaker 2: through his art.
32:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he had that Montreal connection, so he sort
32:38
Speaker 1: of Montreal artists would he'd make connections with the Group
32:41
Speaker 1: of seven again, you know, artists knowing each other and
32:45
Speaker 1: sharing ideas and just sensibilities ethos if you will is
32:50
Speaker 1: a good thing. But he was one of the ones
32:52
Speaker 1: that went over with World War One to fight. He
32:55
Speaker 1: was actually wounded there and also painted for War memorials.
33:02
Speaker 2: Yeah. Another guy who painted for Canadian War memorials that
33:05
Speaker 2: you mentioned earlier was Arthur Lismer.
33:07
Speaker 1: Yeah.
33:08
Speaker 2: He was famous for painting warships that were returning to
33:12
Speaker 2: port that had dazzle camouflage on them, which essentially is
33:17
Speaker 2: like op art painted on warships. Yeah.
33:20
Speaker 1: I had never heard of this before he do you No, huh,
33:22
Speaker 1: it's super cool. It's a way for It's not you know,
33:26
Speaker 1: camouflage in the way that it's supposed to blend in
33:29
Speaker 1: with the sea around it. In fact, far from it.
33:31
Speaker 1: It doesn't do anything like that, right, Like you said,
33:34
Speaker 1: it looks like cool pop art, you know, painted on
33:36
Speaker 1: a warship like could It almost looks like some weird
33:39
Speaker 1: art installation and not a real thing that the Navy did.
33:43
Speaker 2: Uh.
33:43
Speaker 1: But the intention there, again is not to like conceal
33:45
Speaker 1: it like it's not there, but to confuse and mislead
33:50
Speaker 1: about like the course heading or something up like that,
33:53
Speaker 1: or like how fast they're going or yeah, like I said,
33:57
Speaker 1: where they're headed, And apparently it worked pretty good.
33:59
Speaker 2: Yeah. They look like disjointed zebra stripes that there are
34:02
Speaker 2: in different chunks that don't line up with one another.
34:05
Speaker 1: Yeah. So that's on the actual ship, and he painted
34:08
Speaker 1: paintings of these ships and they're really cool looking. I
34:10
Speaker 1: love it.
34:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, And Arthur Lismer is one of those painters whose
34:14
Speaker 2: style seemingly changed overnight around nineteen twenty and really falls
34:19
Speaker 2: into line with the rest of the group. So it's
34:21
Speaker 2: pretty cool.
34:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess we'll go with the last three. Here.
34:24
Speaker 1: We have Frederick Varley, who lived till nineteen sixty nine,
34:28
Speaker 1: so I think he was the second longest. He was
34:32
Speaker 1: a schoolmate of Lismers in England, and I think we
34:35
Speaker 1: didn't mention that they both studied in Antwerp, Belgium, and
34:39
Speaker 1: then he reconnected with Lismer after living in Yorkshire and
34:42
Speaker 1: getting married, and he was like Listmer's like, come on
34:45
Speaker 1: over to Canada, man, and he did so in nineteen twelve,
34:48
Speaker 1: went to work at the Grip like a lot of them,
34:49
Speaker 1: and also painted for the war memorials.
34:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was actually embedded in Europe with the Canadian military,
34:56
Speaker 2: so a lot of his paintings that he made during
34:58
Speaker 2: the war were like bombed out villages or I read
35:03
Speaker 2: that he's one of his paintings was a shelled cemetery.
35:08
Speaker 2: To basically say, like even the dead can escape war.
35:11
Speaker 2: It's some harrowing stuff that he produced, for sure, and
35:15
Speaker 2: he was very affected by the war. I should say, yeah,
35:19
Speaker 2: to answer your question, who else we have is my
35:22
Speaker 2: favorite by far of the group, Frankie, Franklin Carmichael. And
35:27
Speaker 2: you were saying you wouldn't hang any of these in
35:28
Speaker 2: your home. I would hang at Carmichael basically any of them.
35:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, actually, and that that's some of my
35:34
Speaker 1: favorite stuff too, And I might I might hang some
35:36
Speaker 1: of the other stuff, mambe I was being too harsh.
35:38
Speaker 2: Hang it all. So he had kind of a more
35:42
Speaker 2: decorative sensibility. I saw it described as he used more colorful,
35:47
Speaker 2: softer colors. Its like just go look up Franklin Carmichael
35:53
Speaker 2: art and you will just sit there and watch it
35:55
Speaker 2: all day.
35:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, he did more water colors than the rest of them,
35:58
Speaker 1: but did work in other medium And then rounding out,
36:02
Speaker 1: we have Frank Johnston born in Toronto, so another one
36:05
Speaker 1: of Canadians sons, and he worked at the Grip as well,
36:10
Speaker 1: and he's I think the only one that actually studied
36:12
Speaker 1: in the United States. He went there for a little while,
36:16
Speaker 1: studied there, did some work there, and then went back
36:18
Speaker 1: to Toronto in nineteen fifteen, and he was known for his
36:24
Speaker 1: opaque watercolor techniques, so he was kind of, you know,
36:27
Speaker 1: watercolors quicker, so he was pumping out paintings much quicker
36:30
Speaker 1: than the rest of these guys.
36:32
Speaker 2: Yeah. I saw he contributed sixty of the two hundred
36:35
Speaker 2: canvases that were at that first show.
36:39
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
36:40
Speaker 2: He also this is so artist. He was born Francis
36:43
Speaker 2: Hans Johnston, and later on in life he compressed that
36:47
Speaker 2: to Franz.
36:48
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Hans and Franz.
36:50
Speaker 2: Pretty cool. Yeah, exactly.
36:52
Speaker 1: Maybe we should take another break, yes, and we'll be
36:55
Speaker 1: back with mart Art. All right. So we've talked about
37:24
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty and what happened over and over again. But
37:26
Speaker 1: finally on May seventh is when the official Unified School
37:29
Speaker 1: opened at the Art Gallery of Toronto with one hundred
37:32
Speaker 1: and twenty paintings. And this is like definitely when the
37:37
Speaker 1: critics kind of some of them poo pooed it. One
37:39
Speaker 1: described some of the paintings as looking like the contents
37:41
Speaker 1: of a drunkard's stomach. And I think this was maybe
37:45
Speaker 1: more just because it was a departure from the traditional art.
37:49
Speaker 1: They got popular pretty quickly. I think their second show
37:52
Speaker 1: in May of twenty one drew about twenty five hundred
37:55
Speaker 1: people over just three weeks in change. So people got
37:59
Speaker 1: on board pretty quickly.
38:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Again because in part this is that
38:04
Speaker 2: they were painting Canada's national identity. That's right. One of
38:08
Speaker 2: the other things. I don't know if I've made that
38:10
Speaker 2: point yet.
38:11
Speaker 1: I think a few more times that might get at home.
38:13
Speaker 2: One of the other things that was really big about
38:15
Speaker 2: this this show was that the director of the National
38:19
Speaker 2: Gallery of all of Canada bought at least three of
38:23
Speaker 2: their works. His name was Eric Brown, and in addition
38:26
Speaker 2: to basically ensconsing them in Canada's National Gallery saying like
38:30
Speaker 2: these guys are legit, this is the real deal, he
38:33
Speaker 2: put them in other exhibitions that Canada put on around
38:36
Speaker 2: the world. And he would really play a big role
38:39
Speaker 2: later on during World War one and two, as we'll see.
38:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he you know, he was a patron of
38:46
Speaker 1: the arts. He loved these guys, but he was also
38:48
Speaker 1: criticized at times later by just solely being into these
38:52
Speaker 1: guys and like, hey, you're not championing the work of
38:56
Speaker 1: women as much as you should, or are indigenous artists,
38:59
Speaker 1: So you know, he was criticized for that. That's all
39:04
Speaker 1: I'll say for sure.
39:07
Speaker 2: So the group is kind of like rolling by now
39:11
Speaker 2: they're doing more journeys. They're meeting once in a while
39:14
Speaker 2: to basically set up exhibitions. Franz Johnston leaves and they're like, well, God,
39:19
Speaker 2: where the group of seven? We need to get a seventh.
39:21
Speaker 2: They bring in a guy named aj Cassen, who used
39:25
Speaker 2: to be Franklin Carmichael's assistant. They're like, okay, let's just
39:28
Speaker 2: break the trend and bring in an eighth member. So
39:31
Speaker 2: they brought in a guy named Edwin Holgate. He was
39:33
Speaker 2: brought in in nineteen twenty nine.
39:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was a portraitist, which was a little different
39:38
Speaker 1: from the rest.
39:38
Speaker 2: Of them for sure. He had also formed another group
39:42
Speaker 2: in Montreal called the beaver Hall Group, which is a.
39:44
Speaker 1: Pretty good group name, Yeah, great name.
39:47
Speaker 2: And then Lemoyne Fitzgerald, who you could call the Jinks.
39:52
Speaker 2: He was brought on in nineteen thirty two. The group
39:54
Speaker 2: broke up in nineteen thirty three, So the Jinks missed
39:58
Speaker 2: their last exhibition in nineteen thirty one, and then he
40:02
Speaker 2: was there for their breakup the year after. He was
40:04
Speaker 2: brought on board.
40:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's too bad for Lemoyne, but he got a
40:09
Speaker 1: brief taste and then you know, he looked until nineteen
40:12
Speaker 1: fifty six, so he was still painting after that. We
40:14
Speaker 1: did mention a woman, Emily Carr near the beginning as like,
40:18
Speaker 1: you know, this is a boys club, but she was
40:21
Speaker 1: never official officially Group of seven because of that, but
40:24
Speaker 1: they did feature her works in some of their shows,
40:28
Speaker 1: one in nineteen twenty seven in particular, and that's when
40:31
Speaker 1: they you know, they kind of pulled her aside and
40:32
Speaker 1: they were like, hey, you know, you're really you're one
40:34
Speaker 1: of us. Like it might not be official, but you're
40:37
Speaker 1: definitely one of us.
40:38
Speaker 2: But don't tell anybody.
40:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, don't tell anyone. And she painted a lot
40:44
Speaker 1: of indigenous villages and stuff like that. Yeah, and at
40:47
Speaker 1: one point was doing indigenous art like hooked rugs and
40:49
Speaker 1: pottery and selling it to tourists. But yeah, she like
40:53
Speaker 1: even way back then, was like, wait a minute, maybe
40:55
Speaker 1: I'm appropriating this. They didn't use that word, I'm sure,
40:58
Speaker 1: but she stopped doing it. She was like, this is
41:00
Speaker 1: not a culture I'm a part of, so maybe I
41:01
Speaker 1: shouldn't be doing it and selling it.
41:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, that lady was ahead of even MPR.
41:06
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, or what's Canada's version of NPR.
41:11
Speaker 2: CBC now, right, of course, So all good things must
41:16
Speaker 2: come to an end. And one of the things that
41:18
Speaker 2: I think you can give a nod to the Group
41:20
Speaker 2: of Seven about is they're like, Hey, this thing's run
41:22
Speaker 2: its course. Let's just disband. So they actually disbanded, They
41:28
Speaker 2: had a formal disbanding, I think again in nineteen thirty three.
41:33
Speaker 2: It was LeMoyne's fault. Again. Part of it was that
41:36
Speaker 2: McDonald had died in nineteen thirty two, and again he
41:40
Speaker 2: was kind of like the guy who was the original,
41:44
Speaker 2: the figurehead, I think, Papa Smurt. Yeah, that was part
41:48
Speaker 2: of it. They thought I had to run its course.
41:50
Speaker 2: But they were also now starting to get real pushback,
41:53
Speaker 2: not just them, but also the National Gallery and Eric
41:56
Speaker 2: Brown saying like, you know, there's other there's other artists
42:00
Speaker 2: in Canada. Can we kind of include them. There's other
42:03
Speaker 2: parts of Canada besides the northern Boreal forest. Yeah, And
42:07
Speaker 2: because of that they actually stepped back. They disbanded the
42:10
Speaker 2: Group of Seven and then they regrouped and expanded to
42:14
Speaker 2: the Canadian Group of Painters, which started out with twenty
42:17
Speaker 2: eight artists and eventually grew to sixty one total over
42:21
Speaker 2: the years, and this one included women.
42:24
Speaker 1: Yes, they expanded it greatly at that point. One of
42:29
Speaker 1: the reasons that you know, they're obviously famous because they
42:33
Speaker 1: were you know, Canadian through and through and what they
42:35
Speaker 1: were doing and where they were living in some of
42:38
Speaker 1: them where they were from. But they in World War two,
42:41
Speaker 1: the Canadian government got involved to do this silkscreen program
42:46
Speaker 1: where they silk green prints of this art and they
42:48
Speaker 1: put them up in their buildings and their government buildings
42:50
Speaker 1: and then put them up for sale. And Eric Brown
42:53
Speaker 1: was behind that as well, and that really just cemented
42:57
Speaker 1: them because all of a sudden people were like buying
43:00
Speaker 1: this stuff and putting it on their own walls as prints.
43:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were in banks, they were in schools. Apparently
43:06
Speaker 2: Arthur Lismer, one of the original Group of seven, was
43:08
Speaker 2: in charge in part of selecting images. So, yeah, the
43:11
Speaker 2: Group of seven was disproportionately represented in this and that
43:15
Speaker 2: is one reason why they are so enmeshed in Canada's
43:22
Speaker 2: artistic psyche, Like this is Canadian art, this is the
43:25
Speaker 2: foundation of it. That's a big part of it.
43:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you could get it at the Spencer Gifts
43:29
Speaker 1: all of a sudden.
43:30
Speaker 2: Yes, and you could you could also make an argument
43:34
Speaker 2: that they were selected for this cheap silk screen reproduction
43:37
Speaker 2: because the colors, the bold colors, the shapes, the contours
43:42
Speaker 2: of the whole thing. They it was ripe for reproduction
43:45
Speaker 2: through screen printing.
43:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure it looked good on a screenprint. Emily
43:50
Speaker 1: Carr was not chosen. In fact, no women were chosen,
43:54
Speaker 1: and I think no artists that painted the coastlines of
43:58
Speaker 1: Canada were chosen, and no work by indigenous artists as well,
44:03
Speaker 1: or work that depicted their community. So again some controversy
44:07
Speaker 1: surrounding that stuff. Obviously, that kind of thing today would
44:11
Speaker 1: be handled a lot differently, but this was again back
44:14
Speaker 1: in the mid nineteen forties when they started the silk screening.
44:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it was interesting that they were still criticized
44:20
Speaker 2: for that kind of stuff even back then. You know
44:22
Speaker 2: people were aware of it, for sure, Yeah, totally. But yeah,
44:26
Speaker 2: if you want to waste some time, well wasted, I
44:30
Speaker 2: should say, go check out the Group of seven dot
44:33
Speaker 2: CA and they have bios and like a lot of
44:36
Speaker 2: selected art or just look up these artists and type
44:40
Speaker 2: in artist name works, and just look at all the
44:44
Speaker 2: amazing stuff that comes up. It's good stuff. I'm glad
44:47
Speaker 2: you found this one or picked it, or it was suggested.
44:49
Speaker 2: I'm not sure.
44:51
Speaker 1: I think I had just heard of him, and Olivia
44:54
Speaker 1: helped us out. And I love learning more and more
44:57
Speaker 1: about art here later in life, me too. Chuck in
45:00
Speaker 1: my fifties.
45:03
Speaker 2: Well, since Chuck said he's in his fifties, of course,
45:06
Speaker 2: that means he's just unlocked. Listener mail, mid fifties.
45:13
Speaker 1: When are you fifty?
45:14
Speaker 2: I will be fifty the July after next, And I
45:17
Speaker 2: don't care because forties suck. Yeah, it's the worst decade
45:24
Speaker 2: so far at least. But I've heard it just gets
45:26
Speaker 2: better after your forties, that your life satisfaction dips in
45:29
Speaker 2: the forties and starts to climb back up and peaks
45:31
Speaker 2: again in your sixties, and that that is comparable to
45:34
Speaker 2: your younger years, the peak of happiness. So we have
45:38
Speaker 2: a lot to look forward to, man.
45:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, just get ready.
45:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're going to be podcasting the whole time.
45:43
Speaker 1: That's right, all right, This is a positive correction about fentanyl.
45:48
Speaker 1: By the way, we got some props for just saying
45:50
Speaker 1: fentanyl not fentanyl all right. Josh noted, if you go
45:54
Speaker 1: to prison, you're expected to simply dry out and hopefully
45:56
Speaker 1: recover that way. That is not the case, Guys, I
45:59
Speaker 1: teach in a correctional play in Indiana. I'm happy to
46:01
Speaker 1: report that our prisons give incarcerated individuals or iii IS
46:05
Speaker 1: the option to take subox zone in a controlled environment
46:09
Speaker 1: at a certain time each day. The II and the
46:11
Speaker 1: program are sent to our medical department and given suboxone
46:15
Speaker 1: in order to help with their treatment. This has helped
46:17
Speaker 1: those who struggle with addiction, but it's important to note
46:20
Speaker 1: that it can be addictive, leading to potential abuse as well.
46:23
Speaker 1: Suboxone compared with recovery programs, has helped a lot of
46:26
Speaker 1: my students, and I found I've been very fortunate to
46:29
Speaker 1: see some people turn their lives around through this. And
46:32
Speaker 1: we heard from a couple of other correctional workers from
46:36
Speaker 1: different states that do the same thing, So it sounds
46:38
Speaker 1: like it's sort of the norm.
46:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's heartening.
46:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's great to hear. Additionally, guys, I appreciate that
46:43
Speaker 1: you cleared up some misconceptions about fentanyl. I can confirm
46:46
Speaker 1: that those ideas still impact law enforcement, as our officers
46:50
Speaker 1: are required to wear gloves during cell searches in order
46:52
Speaker 1: to prevent absorbing fentanyl through the skin. Thanks for providing
46:56
Speaker 1: years of knowledge and relaxed and fund manner. Thanks for
46:58
Speaker 1: coming to Indianapolis. I was at the show and it
47:00
Speaker 1: was great.
47:01
Speaker 2: It was a good show.
47:01
Speaker 1: And that is from Samuel Adult Basic Education instructor.
47:05
Speaker 2: Thanks Samuel, you're out there doing God's work. Congratulations to
47:08
Speaker 2: you and thank you for it. And if you want
47:11
Speaker 2: to be like Samuel and gently correct us, we love
47:14
Speaker 2: that kind of thing. You can send it via email
47:17
Speaker 2: to stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
47:23
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
47:26
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47:30
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