NEWS RELEASE
ORILLIA MUSEUM OF ART AND HISTORY
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It was a full house for the 14th annual Carmichael Art History Lecture held at the Orillia Museum of Art and History recently, to hear Brian Harris speak about the death of one of Canada’s foremost painters and a pioneer in Canadian art, Tom Thomson.
Harris thoroughly explored the lore around Thomson’s mysterious death at Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park in 1917. He engaged the audience in the beauty and mystique of Canoe Lake. Canoe Lake had captivated Tom Thomson and Harris captivated his audience.
Harris recounted how he spent ten summers working at a camp on Canoe Lake. He got to know and became friends with the residents and heard the accounts of that fateful day that have been passed on through their families. He painted a picture of Tom Thomson as a debonair, unsettled and troubled young man with a penchant for heavy drinking.
Harris explained that Thomson, with no formal training, quit his job to paint full time at Canoe Lake and that he became part of the fabric of the community, working as a guide and gaining a reputation as an excellent woodsman and fisherman.
Harris walked the audience through various myths associated with Tom Thomson’s death that grew from the stories told by characters at Canoe Lake. Was his death the result of a love triangle, was it because of a spat about money owed him or resulting from a fight at a drunken party the night before his death? Even the idea of suicide has been floated. Or, did he simply get drunk, fall out of his cedar strip canoe and drown? The debate still goes on over a hundred years after his death.
Harris shared his experience of the beauty and nature that inspired Tom Thomson to create the iconic works that we have come to know, and that to this day draw people from all walks of life and from far and wide to see first-hand the beauty that inspired Thomson.
Harris himself early on was so taken by the beauty of Canoe Lake that, two weeks after arriving there, he bought a box of paints and took up painting the landscapes himself. He honed his craft throughout his life and used his paintings to illustrate the beauty of the area for this audience.
Harris ended his talk with a video of a surreal early morning paddle on Canoe Lake juxtaposing the paintings by Tom Thomson inspired by the views. And for a short time, the audience at OMAH was captivated by the spirit of Canoe Lake.
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