The Canadian Group of Painters (CGP) was a

collective A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest or work together to achieve a common objective. Collectives can differ from cooperatives in that they are not necessarily focused upon an e ...

of 28 painters from across

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

who came together as a group in 1933. Its Archives is in

Queen's University, Kingston Queen's University at Kingston, commonly known as Queen's University or simply Queen's, is a public university, public research university in Kingston, Ontario, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Queen's holds more than of land throughout Ontario and ...

Formation

The Canadian Group of Painters succeeded the disbanded

Group of Seven The Group of Seven (G7) is an Intergovernmentalism, intergovernmental political and economic forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States; additionally, the European Union (EU) is a "non- ...

, whose modernist paintings of the Canadian north land had been a strong influence on Canadian art. In the early 1930s, the Group of Seven's prominence had caused controversy as many believed that the

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's National museums of Canada, national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the List of large ...

exhibited favouritism for their work and they were the only Canadian artists to receive global recognition. Concern over the Gallery's potential bias and exclusion of modern artists led to the formation of the Canadian Group of Painters in February 1933. The group was made up of 28 different English-speaking painters from across Canada with Lawren Harris as their inaugural president. Several of the other Group of Seven painters were also included in the new group including A. J. Casson,

Arthur Lismer Arthur Lismer, LL.D. (27 June 1885 – 23 March 1969) was an English-Canadian painter, member of the Group of Seven and educator. He is known primarily as a landscape painter and for his paintings of ships in dazzle camouflage. Early life ...

, A. Y. Jackson, F.H. Varley and

Franklin Carmichael Franklin Carmichael (May 4, 1890 – October 24, 1945) was a Canadian artist and member of the Group of Seven. Though he was primarily famous for his use of watercolours, he also used oil paints, charcoal and other media to capture the Ontario ...

. Although the group never created a manifesto, they lived and worked with two objectives: to foster closer cooperation between Canadian artists and to encourage and cultivate Canadian artistic expression.

History

Their first exhibition of "nationalist art" was held in

Atlantic City Atlantic City, sometimes referred to by its initials A.C., is a Jersey Shore seaside resort city in Atlantic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Atlantic City comprises the second half of the Atlantic City- Hammonton metropolitan sta ...

, New Jersey in November 1933. They showcased 57 works at the Heinz Art Salon, which proved to be a great international venue to showcase their brand. However, the pieces that gained the most recognition and press were still the Group of Seven works. The first CGP exhibition in Canada was held in November 1933. The exhibit was less restrictive in style and featured a wider range of works that fell outside of the Canadian

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...

style. Their next exhibition was not held until January 1936 at the

Art Gallery of Toronto The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; ) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located on Dundas Street, Dundas Street West in the Grange Park (neighbourhood), Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, the museum complex takes up of phys ...

. The significant delay was caused by a variety of scandals between group members, including an affair between Lawren Harris and Bess Larkin Housser, fellow artist and the wife of CGP's secretary, Fred Housser. Harris stepped down as president and A. Y. Jackson took the lead with vice presidents

and Prudence Heward in 1936. The group held a number of exhibitions under their new leadership and were making strides towards a unified style. The Eastern Group of Painters was formed in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

in 1938 to counteract the influence of the Canadian Group of Painters.

Influence

As active painters and as a group they continued to produce and influence Canadian art for many years. The Canadian Group of Painters organized exhibitions of the works of the

Beaver Hall Group The Beaver Hall Group refers to a Montreal-based group of Canadians, Canadian painters who met in the late 1910s while studying art at a school run by the Art Association of Montreal. The Group is notable for its equal inclusion of men and women ar ...

. Jock Macdonald, who was a founding member of the Canadian Group of Painters, was also a founding member of

Painters Eleven Painters Eleven (also known as Painters 11) was a group of abstract artists active in Canada between 1953 and 1960. They are associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement. History Since the 1920s, artists in English Canada had been heavily i ...

. ''A Vital Force: The Canadian Group of Painters'' (CGP) (2013), which was curated by Alicia Boutilier for the

Agnes Etherington Art Centre The Agnes Etherington Art Centre is located in Kingston, Ontario, on the campus of Queen's University. The gallery has received a number of awards for its exhibitions from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Association of Art Galleries ...

, was the first major touring exhibition to focus exclusively on the CGP in an exhibition of major paintings from public and private collections across Canada. The ''Canadian Group of Painters Up Close'' is a film of a talk given during 2013 which focuses on four painters in the show.

Members

1933 founding members

* Bertram Brooker *

Emily Carr Emily Carr (December 13, 1871 – March 2, 1945) was a Canadian artist who was inspired by the monumental art and villages of the First Nations and the landscapes of British Columbia. She also was a vivid writer and chronicler of life in her sur ...

* A.J. Casson *

Charles Comfort Charles Fraser Comfort, LL. D. (July 22, 1900 – July 5, 1994) was a Scottish-born Canadian painter, sculptor, teacher, writer and administrator. Career and biography Early life Born near Edinburgh, Scotland, Comfort moved to Winnipeg in ...

* L.L. FitzGerald * Bess Harris * Lawren Harris * Prudence Heward * Randolph S. Hewton * Edwin Holgate * Yvonne McKague Housser * A.Y. Jackson *

* Jock Macdonald * Thoreau MacDonald * H. Mabel May * Isabel McLaughlin * Lilias Torrance Newton * Will Ogilvie * George Pepper * Sarah Robertson * Albert H. Robinson * Anne Savage * Charles H. Scott * F. H. Varley * W. P. Weston * W. J. Wood

1935–1940 additions

André Charles Biéler André Charles Biéler (8 October 1896 – 1 December 1989) was a Swiss-born Canadian painter and teacher. His work was modernist, at first with strong emphasis on line, later with more interest in light and colour. He is known for his genre pictu ...

John Martin Alfsen John Martin Alfsen , known more commonly as John Alfsen (December23, 1902November 30, 1971) was a painter, known for his portraits, figurative work and paintings of circus life. Biography John Martin Alfsen was born in Long Rapids, Michigan, and ...

* Paraskeva Clark * Rody Kenny Courtice * Bobs Cogill Haworth * Pegi Nicol MacLeod * Kathleen Daly * Carl Schaefer * Gordon Webber * Caven Atkins * Peter Haworth * Jack Humphrey * Mabel Lockerby * Henri Masson * David Milne * Kathleen Morris * Louis Muhlstock * Ethel Seath

1942–1954 additions

* Fritz Brandtner * Goodridge Roberts * Marian Dale Scott * Jack Nichols * William Winter * Edna Taçon * E. Michael Mitchell * E. J. Hughes * Jack Bush * B. C. Binning * Stanley Cosgrove * L. A. C. Panton * Jacques de Tonnancour *

Roloff Beny Roloff Beny (1924–1984) was a Canadians, Canadian photographer who spent the better part of his life in Rome and on his photographic travels throughout the world. Born Wilfred Roy Beny in Medicine Hat, Alberta, he later took as his first name ' ...

* Lionel Thomas

Select group exhibitions

* 1933: Heinz Art Salon, NJ * 1936:

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; ) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located on Dundas Street, Dundas Street West in the Grange Park (neighbourhood), Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, the museum complex takes up of phys ...

* 1937: Art Gallery of Ontario * 1937: Art Gallery of Ontario * 1938:

* 1939: New York World's Fair, NY * 1940: Art Association of Montreal, QC * 1951:

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) is an art museum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the largest art museum in Canada by gallery space. The museum is located on the historic Golden Square Mile stretch of Sherbrooke Street west. The MMFA ...

, QC * 1953: Art Gallery of Ontario * 1993: ''Pilgrims in the Wilderness: The Struggle of the Canadian Group of Painters (1933–1969)'', the

Robert McLaughlin Gallery The Robert McLaughlin Gallery is a public art gallery in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest public art gallery in the Regional Municipality of Durham, of which Oshawa is a part. The gallery houses a significant collection of Canadian conte ...

, Oshawa * 2013: ''A Vital Force: The Canadian Group of Painters'',

, Kingston

References

{{ACArt Canadian artist groups and collectives History of art in Canada Canadian art movements Canadian modern artists 1930s establishments in Ontario