A Like Vision: The Group Of Seven & Tom Thomson

Title: A Like Vision: The Group Of Seven & Tom Thomson
Author: Ian A.C. Dejardin & Sarah Milroy
Hardcover:   9781773102054  
Publisher: Goose Lane Editions

A Like Vision is a lavish celebration of the legacy of Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven, Canada's canonical landscape painters. The Group's depiction of the rugged beauty of the Canadian landscape — from the coastal mountains of British Columbia to the north shore of Lake Superior, the villages of rural Quebec, and the rocky, windswept coves of Newfoundland — charged Canadians to experience their country in a bold new light and changed the face of Canadian art forever. Through their vigorous and expressive painterly style and vibrant colours, the Group of Seven significantly contributed to Canada's sense of autonomy and identity as a modern state in the aftermath of the First World War.

Featuring three hundred full-colour images, A Like Vision includes a lead essay by Ian A.C. Dejardin, Executive Director of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, and contributions by a host of artists, curators, and writers. Among them are Indigenous art historian and curator Gerald McMaster, filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal, novelists David Macfarlane and Jane Urquhart, painters John Hartman and Robert Houle, and Inuk writer Tarrilik Duffy.

One hundred years on from the Group's first exhibition in 1920, A Like Vision is both a chance to review the Group's legacy and a tribute to these giants of Canadian art and culture.

“The group of Seven not only translated what they saw into a vivid visual language of their own, but through that language they taught us to appreciate the natural beauty of Canada in all its vast scale and variety.” — Ian A.C. Dejardin

This landmark celebration of the work of the Group of Seven and Tom Thomson offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reconsider the legacy of Canada’s canonical landscape painters in the company of writers, art historians, filmmakers, musicians, and artists.

About the author:

Ian A. C. Dejardin is the Executive Director of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario, near Toronto. Previously he served as Director of Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, UK (2005 to 2017), having held from 1998 the position of Curator of that museum’s famous permanent collection of European Old Master paintings. From 1990 to 1997, Dejardin served as Senior Curator of Paintings for English Heritage Trust, London Region. While at Dulwich, Dejardin curated Henry Moore at Dulwich Picture Gallery (2004) and Painting Canada: Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven (2011).

Sarah Milroy is Chief Curator at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. A highly respected art critic and exhibition curator, she has contributed to more than a dozen books on art, including Mary Pratt, From the Forest to the Sea: Emily Carr in British Columbia, and David Milne: Modern Painting.