The Canadian Art Club

Established in Toronto in 1907 to advance the standards of Canadian art exhibitions and to exhibit the work of Canadian expatriate artists at home. The annual exhibitions organized in Toronto, and in Montreal in 1910 , included the finest work being produced by Canadian artists. Membership included painters and sculptors and was by invitation only. Edmund Morris ( 1871 – 1913 ) and Homer Watson ( 1855 – 1936 ) were key figures in its formation and the first exhibition included work by Horatio Walker ( 1858 – 1938 ), working in New York since 1885 , and James Wilson Morrice ( 1865 – 1924 ) of Paris (since 1890 ). Later expatriate exhibitors included Ernest Lawson ( 1873 – 1939 ), James Kerr-Lawson ( 1862 – 1939 ), and the sculptor Phimister Proctor ( 1860 – 1950 ). Montreal members included Clarence Gagnon ( 1881 – 1942 ), W. H. Clapp ( 1879 – 1954 ), Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté ( 1869 – 1937 ), and Henri Hébert ( 1884 – 1950 ).
The main instigators of the Club were the painters Edmund Morris (1871–1913) and Curtis Williamson (1867–1944), who were ‘deeply disturbed by the tired, old-fashioned look of Canadian art as seen in the various annual exhibitions’ ( Dennis Reid, A Concise History of Canadian Painting, 1973) and attempted to establish higher standards through small, carefully hung shows. Membership of the Club was by invitation only. Homer Watson was the first president, and other members included the Scottish-born William Brymner (1855–1925), who had been the first Canadian painter to study in Paris (at the Académie Julian), Maurice Cullen, J. W. Morrice, and Horatio Walker. The work of these artists was varied in style and subject, but generally it showed influence from Impressionism and Whistler. Their eight exhibitions were well received, but the Club disbanded in 1915, having lost some of its momentum because of the death (by drowning) of Morris in 1913 and because of the distractions of the First World War (there were also personality clashes among some of the members). However, the Club helped to prepare the way for the Group of Seven.

The Canadian Art Club originated in Toronto from 1907 to 1915, and had a population of 20 artists. The Club was formed in spite of the Ontario Society of Artists' low standards and 'truth to nature' aesthetics, and was modelled on Whistler's International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers. The Club encouraged achievement of individuals and was nationalisting in persuading expatriates to exhibit at home, but defined nationality in only the broadest terms. Its eight exhibitions hoped to establish a high standard for other artists and concentrated on small, carefully hung groups of works by leading Canadian artists.

Influences

The members of the Club who exhibited their work were highly influenced by the Hague school, Barbizon school and British plein-air painting, by Whistler and the Impressionists. Works by the members were very well received by critics, and the Club's activists played the roles of important catalysts for both artistic and institutional change. The influence of its Quebec Impressionist members on the emerging Group of Seven was major.

Reason for disbandment

After the death of Edmund Montague Morris in 1913, and with the distractions of World War I, the Club disbanded due to a small amount of finance and personal issues, leaving the membership with little to no enthusiasm to remain keeping the Club alive.

Notable members

• Homer Watson
  Homer Watson
  Homer Ransford Watson was a Canadian landscape painter. He was "the man who first saw Canada as Canada, rather than as dreamy blurred pastiches of European painting," according to J. Russell Harper, a former curator of Canadian art at the National Gallery of Canada...
  
  
• Maurice Galbraith Cullen
  Maurice Galbraith Cullen
  Maurice Galbraith Cullen was a Canadian artist.Cullen was born June 6, 1866 in St. John's, Newfoundland.-War artist:Beginning in January 1918, Cullen served with Canadian forces in the First World War. He came to the attention of Lord Beaverbrook, who arranged for him to be commissioned as an...
  
  
• Clarence Alphonse Gagnon
• James Wilson Morrice
  James Wilson Morrice
  James Wilson Morrice was a significant Canadian landscape painter. He studied at the Académie Julian in Paris, France, where he lived for most of his career.-Biography:...
  
  
• Horatio O Walker
• William Brymner
  William Brymner
  William Brymner, CMG was a Canadian art teacher and a figure and landscape painter.-Early years:Born in Greenock, Scotland, the son of Douglas Brymner the first Dominion Archivist and Jean Thomson, he moved with his family to Melbourne, Lower Canada in 1857. In 1864, his family moved to Montreal...
  
  
• Edmund Montague Morris
• Alexander Phimster Proctor
• Albert Curtis Williamson