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| Canadian Group of Painters | |
|---|---|
| Name | Canadian Group of Painters |
| Formation | 1933 |
| Headquarters | Toronto, Ontario |
| Region served | Canada |
| Membership | Painters |
Canadian Group of Painters
The Canadian Group of Painters formed in 1933 in Toronto, Ontario, as a national coalition succeeding the Group of Seven and aiming to represent diverse regional practices across Canada including artists from Quebec, the Maritime Provinces, the Prairies, and the Pacific Coast. Founders and early members sought to exhibit alongside institutions such as the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and provincial galleries in Montreal, Vancouver, Halifax, and Winnipeg, and to engage with contemporaneous movements in New York City, London, Paris, Berlin, and Moscow. The Group negotiated artistic networks linking figures associated with the Art Association of Montreal, the Ontario Society of Artists, the Canadian National Exhibition, and patrons connected to the Guggenheim Foundation and corporate collectors.
The Group coalesced after meetings prompted by artists who had exhibited with the Group of Seven and participants from the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour, the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, and the Ontario College of Art. Early organizational activity involved correspondence with galleries in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Halifax as well as dialogue with curators at the National Gallery of Canada and trustees of the Art Gallery of Ontario. The Group's first collective exhibitions were mounted amid the economic pressures of the Great Depression and the cultural realignments following the First World War and in advance of the international tensions leading to the Second World War. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, the Group collaborated with municipal galleries, university collections at McGill University, University of Toronto, and University of British Columbia, and with private dealers active in Montreal and Toronto.
Membership included artists who had worked alongside or in the wake of members of the Group of Seven, and those connected to schools such as the Ontario College of Art and Design University, the Art Association of Montreal School, and the Banff School of Fine Arts. Prominent painters associated with the Group included artists linked to urban scenes in Toronto and landscape traditions tied to the Algonquin Provincial Park and the Laurentians. The roster featured practitioners who exhibited with galleries like the Macbeth Gallery and institutions such as the Vancouver Art Gallery and the McCord Museum. Members’ careers intersected with awards including the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts and exhibitions in venues like the Canadian National Exhibition and international fairs in New York City and Paris. The Group contained painters with prior affiliations to organizations such as the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours and the Canadian Society of Graphic Art.
Artists within the Group synthesized landscape traditions rooted in the work of earlier figures connected to the Group of Seven with urban modernism visible in cultural centers like Montreal, Vancouver, and Winnipeg. They absorbed influences from European currents circulating through exhibitions of Impressionism in London, Post-Impressionism in Paris, and newer movements seen in catalogs from Berlin and New York City. Members engaged with printmaking and watercolour practices taught at ateliers associated with the Royal Academy of Arts and techniques discussed in salons alongside artists who had traveled to the École des Beaux-Arts and studied under instructors linked to the Slade School of Fine Art. The Group’s paintings frequently referenced particular Canadian topographies such as vistas of the St. Lawrence River, the Canadian Shield, the Rocky Mountains, and coastal scenes from Nova Scotia and British Columbia.
The Group organized national exhibitions touring institutions including the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, and university galleries at McGill University and the University of Toronto. Reviews appeared in periodicals based in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver and critics who had written on exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the Tate Gallery in London compared the Group’s work to contemporaneous international shows. Exhibition circulation brought the Group into contact with collectors from institutions like the Royal Ontario Museum, corporate patrons with ties to the Hudson's Bay Company, and committees organizing cultural exchanges with delegations from Paris and New York City. Reception varied regionally, with provincial juries in Quebec and the Maritime Provinces responding differently than curators at national venues.
The Group’s legacy is visible in subsequent generations of painters who taught at the Ontario College of Art and Design University, the University of British Columbia, and the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, and who contributed to collections at the National Gallery of Canada and the Canadian Museum of History. Its influence extended to regional artist-run centres, municipal gallery programming in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, and to the institutional practices of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour. Scholarly attention to the Group appears in exhibitions curated by institutions such as the Art Gallery of Ontario and texts produced by historians affiliated with McGill University and the University of Toronto, shaping narratives displayed in public galleries and affecting acquisition policies at provincial museums in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador.
Category:Canadian art movements