Fifth Business in the Art World

The first half of the 20th century was one of vigorous growth and development in Canadian art, without much encouragement from a conservative society. When you read the standard art histories of this period, invariably constructed around the formation and struggle of the Group of Seven, you have to ask: Why were our painters so conventional? Did they feel they had to pretend to be bourgeois to make it? Where were the bohemians?

When members of the Group of Seven went on their boxcar excursions to explore the Canadian landscape, they had a “no alcohol” rule. Lawren Harris famously painted in his three-piece suit and tie and had to leave Toronto when he divorced his wife. They seem to us like squares compared to their European counterparts. Where is our Bateau-Lavoir, our Bloomsbury painters immersed in love triangles, our Pont-Aven group, our madmen suicides like Modigliani or Van...