First shown at the AGO's predecessor, in 1920
The Group of Seven
Canada's most influential group of landscape painters first exhibited together in Toronto in 1920 — and the couple who later assembled the definitive collection of their work started by buying paintings directly from the artists themselves.
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Our art guide covers the AGO and Graffiti Alley. This page is about the movement most responsible for the AGO's significance in the first place: the Group of Seven, Canada's most influential school of landscape painters, which debuted in Toronto.
A 1920 debut at the AGO's predecessor
On May 7, 1920, seven artists — J.E.H. MacDonald, Lawren Harris, A.Y. Jackson, Arthur Lismer, F.H. Varley, Frank Johnston and Franklin Carmichael — exhibited together for the first time at the Art Gallery of Toronto, the direct predecessor to today's Art Gallery of Ontario. Their show of more than 120 paintings introduced a deliberately new, boldly coloured style of depicting the Canadian wilderness, moving decisively away from the more conservative European painting traditions that had dominated Canadian art until then.
A collection built by two admirers, not an institution
The definitive public collection of Group of Seven work didn't come from a museum acquisitions committee — it came from Robert and Signe McMichael, a couple who began buying paintings directly from artists associated with the group starting in 1955. In 1965, they donated their entire collection and their Kleinburg property, just northwest of Toronto, to the Government of Ontario; the resulting McMichael Canadian Art Collection opened to the public in 1966 and remains the single richest collection of Group of Seven work anywhere.
A century-long influence
2020 marked the 100th anniversary of that first 1920 exhibition, an occasion the McMichael marked with a dedicated retrospective — a reminder that a movement founded on painting the specific light and landscape north of Toronto has shaped how Canadians picture their own country for more than a century.
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Sources
- Northern Ontario Travel — A Group of Seven Primer
- Wikipedia — McMichael Canadian Art Collection
- Capital Current — 'A Like Vision': Kleinburg Gallery Marks 100th Anniversary