Today, Tom Thomson is known as the brilliant, pioneering Canadian artist who influenced the Group of Seven painters. But during his short lifetime, Thomson also earned a reputation as an avid outdoorsman, canoeist and fisherman, as shown in this photo from 1914.
Thomson was born in Claremont, Ontario, on August 5, 1877. Two months later, the Thomson family moved to Leith, near Meaford, where Tom lived until the age of 21. While working in Toronto as a commercial artist, he met most of the members of what would later become the Group of Seven. They often met at the Arts and Letters Club of Toronto to discuss their opinions and share their art.
His burgeoning artistic career ended tragically on July 8, 1917 when he drowned in Canoe Lake, Algonquin Park at age 39. Originally buried in Mowat Cemetery on Canoe Lake, his coffin was later exhumed and re-interred in the family plot beside Leith United Church (although there has long been speculation that Thomson’s body was not relocated to Leith but secretly buried in an unmarked grave on the shores of Canoe Lake).
Though Thomson died before the formal establishment of the Group of Seven, he is considered an unofficial member and his art is typically exhibited with the rest of the group’s.
Today Thomson’s name, art and love of the outdoors are memorialized throughout the area where he spent his youth. The Tom Thomson Trail runs between Meaford and Owen Sound, passing near his family home and grave in Leith, while the Tom Thomson Art Gallery, established in Owen Sound in 1967 with strong support from the Thomson family, houses one of Canada’s largest collections of his work. ❧
Sources: Tom Thomson Art Gallery, Owen Sound; Wikipedia.
