JAMES EDWARD HERVEY
MACDONALD
(1872 - 1932)

"Realistic pictures then, are no more art, than stock reports or railroad timetables are poetry."

James Edward Hervey MacDonald was born in Durham, England. MacDonald was of Canadian and English heritage. When MacDonald was fourteen, his Canadian father brought him to Hamilton for art lessons. MacDonald was very fond of art and spent much of his time sketching. Because of his interest in art, he established a club where every gifted artist could share his or her talent. This group was called The Group of Seven and here is a poem that he wrote about them.

We want no dull or frigid gray
Of old conventions on our way,
We see the beckoning future ray-
We are the Group of Seven

In 1887, he founded the Hamilton Art School and the Ontario College of Art. In 1909, the Hamilton School became an independent institution. After moving to Toronto in 1889, MacDonald worked for a Toronto lithography house. On May 12, 1899, on his twenty-sixth birthday, MacDonald married Joan Lavis, a McMaster University student. Together they had a son named Thoreau.

One of MacDonald's greatest friends in his early years was Lawren Harris. In 1913, they went to Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York to see landscape paintings created by other artists. This experience proved to be very influential in their careers. One of MacDonald's best works was done in Sand River, Algoma, titled "Mist Fantasy." By using its long ribbons of mist, people recognize them as MacDonald' s way of stylizing form.

Tracks and Traffic (1912)

Falls, Montreal River (1920)





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