Tom Thomson is the undisputed master of the oil sketch. A towering figure in the history of Canadian art after just five years of professional practise, he stunned audiences with his fresh and avant-garde experimentation, evoking his experience of the Ontario landscape in dozens of dazzling miniature masterworks.

Thomson’s death in 1917 triggered the formation of the Group of Seven and the ascendancy of landscape painting as a national preoccupation. Tom Thomson: North Star is the first book to focus on Thomson’s small-scale sketches and brings together a variety of voices to interpret his legacy with fresh eyes. Among them are the McMichael’s Executive Director Ian A.C. Dejardin, historian Douglas Hunter, and Algonquin knowledge-keeper and cultural activist Christine McRae Luckasavitch, as well as a number of contemporary Canadian artists from all parts of Canada. The essays in combination with more than 150 reproductions of Thomson’s painted sketches cast new light on the enduring influence of one of Canada’s most iconic artists.

Sarah Milroy is a Toronto writer and art critic. She served as editor and publisher of Canadian Art magazine (1991-96) and as art critic of the Globe and Mail (2001-10). Milroy has contributed to publications on the work of Gathie Falk, Jack Chambers, Greg Curnoe and Fred Herzog, and is a regular contributor to Canadian Art, Border Crossings and The Walrus.

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Ian A.C. Dejardin is an art historian and executive director of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.

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