Themes > Arts > Painting > 20th-Century Painting > North American Realism > The Group of Seven

Canada, 1920-1960's

The Group of Seven were Canadian wilderness landscape painters inspired by the work of Tom Thomson, who died under mysterious circumstances while on a trek in Ontario's Algonquin Park in 1917 (his body was found floating in Canoe Lake, but an autopsy showed an injury to the head and no evidence of water in his lungs).

Group of Seven artists were strongly influenced by Post-Impressionism, creating bold, vividly-colored canvases, and instilling elements of the landscape with symbolic meaning.

The group was not limited to the seven founding members, and they eventually changed their name to the Canadian Group of Painters. Besides Thomson, the group included Franklin Carmichael, A.J. Casson, Lionel Fitzgerald, Lawren Harris, Edwin Holgate, A.Y. Jackson, Arthur Lismer, J.E.H. MacDonald, F.H. Varley. Emily Carr was inspired by the group early in her career.


Chronological Listing of Group of Seven Painters


  MacDonald, J. E. H.
  Varley, Frederick Horsman
  Jackson, A.Y.
  Harris, Lawren S.
  Lismer, Arthur


  Johnston, Frank
  Carmichael, Franklin
  FitzGerald, Lionel LeMoine
  Holgate, Edwin
  Casson, Alfred Joseph


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