Thursday 15 April 2021

Artist of the year etc



Our telly gets Sky Arts on freeview, or at least that’s how I think we access it. As a family we really enjoyed Portrait Artist of the year a competition where professional artists and amateurs engage with celebrities and paint them. This lead onto Landscape Artist of the Year similar format but painting landscapes, you get the idea. Again excellent lockdown telly , diverting and a wee virtual trip out. Our latest series is Canadian Landscape artist of the year . This is even better because each episode has a brief history lesson about the venue being painted and the chap who is in charge of the McMichael Art Collection near Toronto talks about and shows some famous paintings. In particular I was taken by the work of The Group of Seven. They were new to me and absolutely fascinating. Probably it’s one of these things where everyone else has heard of them except me.So as I bought this-


 

 If  this current vileness ever ends I would like to one day go and see these paintings for myself. In the meantime have a look at their art online  you will be blown away , l was.

10 comments:

  1. Should/When you get to Ontario, you know where to visit!

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  2. The group of seven are well worth looking into. The National Gallery in Ottawa has a very good collection. Their work really captures Canadian landscapes. The TV series was good too.

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    1. I am really enjoying the book, they are indeed fascinating and all of this is new to me. Interestingly I discovered the chap from the McMichael went to my old school, being some years ahead of me. Small world!

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  3. Portrait Artist is a great series...I keep meaning to watch the Landscape one

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  4. I think every public art gallery in Canada has a few painting by the Group of Seven. If you are enjoying their work, do look up Emily Carr - also a Canadian artist that lived and painted on the west coast around the time the Group of Seven were active.

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    1. I will look her up, thanks for the tip.

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    2. Six of the original Group of Seven also served as official War Artists in the Great War. I think Lawren Harris was also a War Artist in WW2 as well.

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    3. I will investigate the War artist work too. I really enjoyed reading about Emily Carr and her work.

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