Bulletin 16, 1970

Home
Français
Introduction
History
Annual Index
Author & Subject
Credits
Contact

Photographs by Tom Thomson

by Dennis Reid, Curator of Post-Confederation Art

Pages  1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  6  |  7  |  8

Notes

1 See Reid, Croup of Seven, pp. 51-2.

2 Letter from Tom Thomson, Toronto, to Dr. J. M. McRuer, Huntsville, postmarked 17 October 1912; in the McMichael Conservation Collection of Art, Kleinburg, Ont.

In Reid, Croup of Seven, p. 52, I stressed the quantity of film taken on the trip: seemingly fourteen dozen rolls! Some quick arithmetic, however, points out the absurdity of my assertion. (14 x 12 = 168 rolls x 12 = 2,016 photos!) Barry Lord has suggested that because there were twelve exposures on a roll of film it was popularly called a "dozen," and that, by "14 dozen," Thomson meant fourteen rolls.

3 Published in the Owen Sound Sun,  27 September 1912. I am grateful to Joan Murray for bringing this reference to my attention.

4 Davies, p. 47.

5 Letter from A. Y. Jackson, Mowat P. O., to J. E. H. MacDonald, Toronto, postmarked 14 February 1914; with Thoreau MacDonald, Thornhill, Ont.

6. Letter from A. Y. Jackson, Mowat P. O., to Dr. James MacCallum, Toronto, 13 October 1914; in the National Gallery of Canada.

7. Quoted in Addison, p. 19.

8 Addison, p. 22. Jackson must have said, or have meant,
"broiled.".

9 Letter from Dr. James MacCallum, Toronto, to Martin Baldwin, The Art Gallery of Toronto, 9 July 1936; in the library of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. Dr. MacCallum himself owned a fish painting, Still Life: Fish and Bowl, but by the American artist, William Merritt Chase (1849-1916). It is now in the National Gallery of Canada (acc. no. 6543), published and illustrated in R. H. Hubbard, The National Gallery of Canada Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture, Volume II: Modern European Schools, Ottawa: The National Gallery of Canada, 1959, p. 167.

10 One, entitled Speckled Trout, was exhibited in Owen Sound, Ont., at The Women's Art Association, Exhibit of Paintings by Tom Thomson, 1-6 May 1922, no. 43; property of the estate of the artist.

11 In a letter to Dennis Reid, 11 May 1971; in the National
Gallery of Canada. 

12 Addison, p. 18. 

13 Addison, p. 13.

14 Letter to Dennis Reid, 11 May 1971; in the National Gallery of Canada.

15 Addison, p. 24. The general build of the figure and the moustache seem very similar.

16 Addison, p. 91, n. 25.

17 Addison, p. 24.

18 For the chronology of Thomson's early years in Toronto see Reid, Croup of Seven, pp. 26-7. The initial identification of the subject of photographs 34 and 36 was made by Ottelyn Addison in a letter to Dennis Reid, 11 May 1971; in the National Gallery of Canada. This identification was confirmed by Dr. McRuer's brother, J. C. McRuer, in a letter to Dennis Reid, 28 July 1971; in the National Gallery of Canada. All biographical information given here conceming Dr. McRuer is also from this second letter.

19 This information is contained in a letter to Dennis Reid from Ottelyn Addison, 7 June 1971; in the National Gallery of Canada.

20 In a letter to Dennis Reid, 11 May 1971; in the National Gallery of Canada.

21 In a letter to Dennis Reid, 19 May 1971; in the National Gallery of Canada.

22 Reid, Croup of Seven, p. 51.

23 Reid, Croup of Seven, pp. 51-2.

24 Letter from Tom Thomson, Toronto, to Dr. J. M. McRuer, Huntsville, postmarked 17 October 1912; in the McMichael Conservation Collection of Art, Kleinburg, Ont. Thomson here says:"...came down by way of the Soo to Owen Sound so did not make a call at Huntsville as I said I might do." He added: "I have to thank your people for the good time I had while in Huntsville." met Tom Thomson, probably in 1913.

25 Letter from Margaret Thomson, Timmins, Ont., to Dr. James MacCallum, Toronto, 9 September 1917; in the National Gallery of Canada. Mrs. Thomson here mentions: "I met Miss Trainor of Huntsville in Toronto. She told me she bad known Tom for four years." Mrs. Fisk, who has identified Winifred Trainor in these two photographs, met her only once, and apparently at the same time as mentioned by her aunt Margaret in the above letter. This was at the Canadian National Exhibition, held in Toronto from 25 August to 10 September 1917, where Thomson's West Wind and five of his Algonquin Park sketches were exhibited publicly for the first time (cat. nos. 214, 215). Winifred Trainor, who was born in 1884, would have been twenty-nine years old when she first met Thomson. Thomson himself turned thirty-six in 1913.

26 Saunders, pp. 171,178.

27 Letter from Tom Thomson, Mowat P. O., to Dr. James MacCallum, Toronto, 22 April 1915; in the National Gallery o f Canada. Thomson here refers to a two-day visit to Huntsville. His friend Dr. McRuer had not lived there since 1913.

28 Addison, p. 69.

29 Letter from Margaret Thomson, Timmins, Ont., to Dr. James MacCallum, Toronto, 9 September 1917; in the National Gallery of Canada.

30 Letter from George Thomson, New Haven, Conn., to Dr. James MacCallum, Toronto, 23 December 1917; in the National Gallery of Canada. Here Thomson's elder brother says: "His relations with the Trainor girl I don't consider to have much bearing Upon the case. I don't consider that she would influence him very greatly one way or another."

31 Addison, p. 93, n. 53.

32. Letter from H. E. Emery, Huntsville Public Library, to H. O. McCurry, The National Gallery of Canada, 24 February 1933; in the National Gallery of Canada. Mr. Emery here describes Winifred Trainor as "a personal friend of (and I believe engaged to be married to) the late Mr. Thomson."

33 Little, pp. 64-70.

34 Little, p. 66.

35 Letter from Winifred Trainor, Toronto, to H. O. McCurry, The National Gallery of Canada, 18 January 1954; in the National Gallery of Canada. Miss Trainor never mentioned her possible engagement to Thompson in this correspondence with McCurry. She died in 1962, never having married. The three rings on the third finger of her left hand in photographs 38 and 39 have not been explained. 

36 Transcription from Saunders, p. 72.

37 Little, p. 62.

Top of this page