JOHNLYMAN
(1886 - 1967)

John Lyman (1886-1967) was one of the biggest critics of the Group of Seven's style. He had exhibited in Montreal in 1913 and had been cut up by the press who didn't like his experimentation. He had left Canada for twenty-four years, returning in 1931. The Group was running the art scene then, and he didn't like the craze with finding Canadianness through just landscape painting.

He, himself, and his paintings were better received in 1931, and, with his new following, he founded an art school, the Atelier, which failed. He continued to exhibit his work, and, in 1939, he founded the Contemporary Art Society to promote modern painting which competed with the successor of the Group of Seven, the Canadian Group of Painters. Until it was dissolved in 1948 because of infighting, CAS was the centre of modern painting in Montréal. John Lyman is probably the most underrated man in Canadian art history.

Portrait of Marcelle (c.1935)




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