Franklin Carmichael

1890-1945
Original Member

Carmichael is the son of a carriage maker he was born in Orillia in Ontario on May 4, 1890. Carmichael came to Toronto in 1911 and he had some experience or training in commercial art, and had found himself the associate of Tom Thomson and a number of other commercial artists who were teaching themselves to be serious painters.

Then in 1913 he left to Paris so he could study painting. Bur in no time he was soon back in Ontario to participate in the founding of the Group of Seven. Then in 1932 Carmichael was then appointed Head of Graphic and Commercial Art at the Ontario College of Art.

He then died in Toronto in 1945.

 Lawren Harris

1885-1970
Original Member

Lawren Harris was born on October 23 1885, in Brantford, Ontario, and he had a  wealthy family

He then decided that he would take up painting at an early age and then he studied in Germany from 1904 to 1907. He then worked briefly with Norman Duncan, by drawing several of Duncan's stories, but then Harris was the only person of the Group of Seven who had been free all his life from monetary pressures and temptations of commercial art and advertising designs.

He is also the only person of the Group who on wanted to paint. After the Group broke up, Harris continued to grow and change as a painter. He had also been a talented ceramicist, then in 1922 he wrote and published a volume of poems.

He had big affection for Scandinavian landscape paintings and it was this that was one of the key factors in the forming of the Group of Seven's approach to the Ontario wood. Then Harris himself painted with gusto.

Then Harris had begun and led the way toward painting the high Arctic, the Rocky Mountains, and other unique and powerful parts of the Canadian earth.

A.Y. Jackson (en Francais aussi)

1882-1974
Original Member

He was born in Montreal on October 3, 1882.

Like other members of the Group of Seven he had been trained as a Commercial Artist. He then had decided to apprentice to a Montreal lithographer at the age of 12 and then he was soon back in Canada paying his rent by designing cigar labels.

Then In 1920, with Lawren Harris, Arthur Lismer, Frank Carmichael, Fred Varley, James MacDonald and Frank Johnston, he had decided he would form the most famous exhibitors group in the history of Canadian painting.

In the following years he painted the Arctic, the West Coast, the Prairies, and the North Woods, as well as his beloved St. Lawrence, where his countless sketching expeditions earned him the nickname Pere Raquette- Pappa Snowshoe.

Arthur Lismer (en Francais aussi)

1885-1969
Original Member

Lismer was born in Sheffield, England. Then at 26, he immigrated to Canada and had began  seeking work as a commercial illustrator. Then at Grip Engraving Company and he then met a group of other talented young artists and then they formed the Group of Seven. Together, they organized trips to explore and sketch the wilderness.

 Although Lismer had painted all his life, he devoted the majority of his time to art education.

J.E.H. MacDonald

1873-1932
Original Member

he was a founding member of the Group of Seven, J.E.H. MacDonald  had challenged and broadened the scope of Canadian Art. MacDonald had also believed that art should be able to express the mood and “character and spirit of the country", and he would also portray his visions in vast panoramas using dark, rich colours and a turbulent patterned style.

MacDonald was born in Durham, England and then he moved to Canada at the age of 14. He then decided that he would train as an artist in Hamilton and Toronto.

Then in 1895 he had joined the Grip Engraving Company in Toronto

Frederick Varley

1881-1969
Original Member

He was born in 1881 in Sheffield, England. He had then studied painting at Sheffield and Antwerp and went to work in London as a commercial illustrator.

Then in 1912 he came to Canada, and he then found himself working in the same commercial studio as Tom Thomson

In 1926 he moved to Vancouver to become Head of Drawing, Painting & Composition at the Vancouver School of Decorative & Applied Arts. Then in 1933 he begun his own school, the B.C. College of Arts, but this venture led to his bankruptcy in 1935. The in 1938 his marriage also collapsed.

In 1945, he had then returned to Toronto and he slowly began to work. He died in Toronto in 1969.