Canadian Spirit: A Resting Place for Tom Thomson
Tom Thomson Algonquin Park 1915 Courtesy Tom Thomson Art Gallery
This week, Owen Sound—along with Ontario and Canada, for that matter—will see the official opening of a new “resting place” for the legacy of national art icon Tom Thomson.
This new space, the large south gallery at the Tom Thomson Art Gallery, is now the permanent home of “Canadian Spirit,” an evolving exhibition of letters, paintings, drawings and a number of rare Thomson artifacts, like his mandolin, engraving tools and shaving mug.
According to gallery director Virginia Eichhorn, if Thomson had never existed, Canada would’ve had to invent him.
“I think that Canada needs to have a hero, someone who really represented the spirit of the burgeoning new country. Even the fact that there was the tragic and mysterious aspect to his death [is important],” says Eichhorn over the phone from Owen Sound. “I think when you look at figures across history who have captured the common imagination and common spirit, those are the qualities they encapsulate.”
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Tom Thomson’s mandolin Courtesy Tom Thomson Art Gallery |
A push to enlarge the namesake gallery’s permanent Thomson display was on Eichhorn’s mind even before she arrived as director in 2009.
“I’d been coming here for many years to see the exhibitions,” says Eichhorn, “and mostly Tom’s work tended to be displayed in the gallery near the entrance, but it was a smaller space. I always wanted to see more. So my response coming on as the new director was to dedicate the second-largest gallery space to Tom and bring in dialogues other artists have had with his work as well.”
One of the “dialogues” currently on view is Marcel O’Gorman’s Myth of the Steersman, an interactive installation that allows online users to modulate canoe-framed views of Thomson’s paintings via http://ape-cml.uwaterloo.ca/.
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Tom Thomson Burns’ Blessing 1906 Courtesy Tom Thomson Art Gallery |
Though “Canadian Spirit” opened its doors in May, it has its official launch Friday, August 5, the 134th anniversary of Thomson’s birth, with a presentation by Roy MacGregor, author of Northern Light: The Enduring Mystery of Tom Thomson and the Woman Who Loved Him. MacGregor’s book focuses on an overlooked figure in Thomson’s life: the eccentric Huntsville spinster Anne Winnifred Trainor, who is speculated to have been the model for Thomson’s 1915 work Figure of a Lady.
Other secrets are up for investigation on site, as the exhibition includes letters recently donated to the gallery written by someone who saw Thomson on the morning of his death.
“Though some elements of the room will change,” Eichhorn says, “It’s always going to be about Tom, his art, his life and his legacy.”
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Tom Thomson Self Portrait (after a day in Tacoma, June 30, 1902) 1902 Courtesy Tom Thomson Art Gallery |
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