Voice of the Pioneer
Remembering Franklin Carmichael and J.E.H. MacDonald
Broadcast Date: Feb. 16, 1969
J.E.H. MacDonald was a dour Methodist, but also the poet among the Group of Seven. Franklin Carmichael was a small-town Canadian who encouraged the others to go abroad. Both have long since passed away — MacDonald, the oldest of the Group, in 1932, and Carmichael in 1945. But Arthur Lismer remembers them — and the personalities of Lawren Harris, A.Y. Jackson, and Fred Varley — in the CBC radio show Voice of the Pioneer.Remembering Franklin Carmichael and J.E.H. MacDonald
• Like Fred Varley, Arthur Lismer was from Sheffield, England. In 1911 he immigrated to Canada and took a job in a lithography plant. He quit soon after and began work at Grip Limited, where he met J.E.H. MacDonald and Tom Thomson.
• Lismer was principal of the Victoria School of Art in Halifax during the Halifax Explosion and its aftermath in 1917. He sketched scenes of the devastation which were published in the Canadian Courier later that month.
• In the late 1920s Lismer painted what's believed to be the largest mural in Canada. The Humberside Lismer Mural was commissioned by Humberside Collegiate in Etobicoke, Ont. and depicts such concepts as faith, wisdom and beauty as well as early Canadian explorers. The mural was damaged and pieces lost when the school was renovated in the 1960s. A dedicated teacher, Mel Greif, raised $100,000 from alumni, governments and other sources to restore the mural and recover lost pieces.
• Later in his career, Lismer focused much of his energy on teaching art to children. In Montreal, he set up one of the most successful children's art programs in North America and was invited to create school programs in South Africa in 1936. His goal in working with children was not to create artists but to "encourage every spark of feeling…toward the development of a more emotionally active and alive little personality."
• J.E.H. MacDonald was the first of the Group to exhibit his sketches at the Arts & Letters Club in late 1911. A local critic reviewed the show, writing: "…so deep and compelling has been the native inspiration that it has to a very great extent found through [MacDonald] a method of expression in paint as native and original as itself."
• MacDonald was the only one of the Group whose early art education was entirely in Ontario.
• Franklin Carmichael was from Orillia, Ont. and started worked at Grip Limited in 1911 after moving to Toronto. He later moved to Rous & Mann and worked steadily as a commercial artist until 1932, when he became head of graphic design and commercial art at the Art Gallery of Ontario.
• Carmichael rarely travelled with the others on long sketching trips and devoted much of his time to his family. Weekends were spent sketching in his hometown.
• Arthur Lismer died in 1969 at age 83. He and his wife are buried in the cemetery at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.
Remembering Franklin Carmichael and J.E.H. MacDonald
Medium: Radio
Program: Voice of the Pioneer
Broadcast Date: Feb. 16, 1969
Guest(s): Arthur Lismer
Host: J. Frank Willis
Duration: 3:19
Photo: Falls, Montreal River by J.E.H. MacDonald
Last updated:
July 7, 2009
Remembering Franklin Carmichael and J.E.H. MacDonald.
The CBC Digital Archives Website.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Last updated: July 7, 2009.
[Page consulted on Feb. 16, 2012.]