Defiant Spirits (56 page)

33. George Thomson to Blodwen Davies
, 8 June 1931, Blodwen Davies Fonds.

34. W.T. Little,
The Tom Thomson Mystery,
p. 40.

35. Mark Robinson, transcript of interview, p. 14. There are numerous (often varying and contradictory) accounts of what transpired on 8 July 1917. I have assembled the following pages using mainly these sources: George Thomson to Blodwen Davies, 8 June 1931, Blodwen Davies Fonds; Mark Robinson to Blodwen Davies, March 23, 1930, Blodwen Davies Fonds; Mark Robinson, transcript of interview, pp. 114–20; R.P. Little, “Some Recollections of Tom Thomson,” pp. 219–20; Saunders,
Algonquin Story,
pp. 183–85; Addison and Harwood,
Tom Thomson,
pp. 68–74; and W.T. Little,
The Tom Thomson Mystery,
pp. 40–57.

36. Winnifred Trainor to George Thomson, 17 September 1917, Tom Thomson Collection, Vol. 1, File 5,
MG
30
D
284,
LAC
.

37. Mark Robinson, transcript of interview, p. 16.

38.
Owen Sound Sun,
13 July 1917.

39. Mark Robinson to Dr. James M. MacCallum, 12 July 1917, Dr. James M. MacCallum Papers.

40.
Toronto Daily Star,
7 July 1917 and 10 July 1917.

41.
Toronto Globe,
13 July 1917.

42. Plewman, “Reflections on the Passing of Tom Thomson,” p. 6.

43.
Owen Sound Sun,
17 July 1917.

44.
Toronto Daily Star,
16 and 17 August 1912.

45. Dr. A.E. Ranney to Blodwen Davies, 7 May 1931, Blodwen Davies Fonds.

46. Copy of entry for Tom Thomson in Burial Register of Knox United Church,
Owen Sound, 20 July 1931, Blodwen Davies Fonds.

47. Mark Robinson, transcript of interview, p. 4.

48. Arthur Lismer, Bedford,
NS
, to Dr. James M. MacCallum, 21 July 1917,
MCAC
Archives.

49. Extracts from the Daily Journal of Mark Robinson, p. 2.

50. Plewman, “Reflections on the Passing of Tom Thomson,” p. 8.

51. Ibid.

52. J.S. Fraser, letter to Dr. J.M. MacCallum, 24 July 1917, Tom Thomson Collection,
Vol. 1, File 3,
MG
30
D
284,
LAC
.

53. Plewman, “Reflections on the Passing of Tom Thomson,” p. 8.

54. J.S. Fraser, letter to George Thomson, 29 December 1917, Tom Thomson Collection,
Vol. 1, File 6,
MG
30
D
284,
LAC
.

55. Franklin Carmichael to Arthur Lismer, 19 July 1917,
MCAC
Archives.

56. Winnifred Trainor to George Thomson, 17 September 1917, Tom Thomson Collection,
Vol. 1, File 5,
MG
30
D
284,
LAC
.

57. Margaret Thomson to Dr. James M. MacCallum, 9 September 1917, Dr. James M. MacCallum Papers. For the accusations of Shannon Fraser's sharp practice, see
T.J. Harkness to J.S. Fraser, 12 September 1917, Tom Thomson Collection, Vol. 1, File 5,
MG
30
D
284,
LAC
; and Winnifred Trainor to George Thomson, 17 September 1917, Tom Thomson Collection, Vol. 1 File 5,
MG
30
D
284,
LAC
. For Fraser's account of the two canoes, see J.S. Fraser to T.J. Harkness, 6 August 1917, Tom Thomson Collection, Vol. 1, File 4,
MG
30
D
284,
LAC
.

58. R.P. Little, “Some Recollections of Tom Thomson,” p. 217; Plewman, “Reflections on the Passing of Tom Thomson,” p. 9.

59. For these two interviews, see Ronald Pittaway, interview with Daphne Crombie, in J. Murray,
Tom Thomson: The Last Spring,
pp. 94–96; and Roy MacGregor, “Author's Note,”
Canoe Lake
(Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2002), pp. 285–89. MacGregor first published details of his interview with Crombie in
The Canadian,
15 October 1977.

60. Sharpe, “The Canoe Lake Mystery,” p. 34.

61. Mark Robinson, transcript of interview, p. 18.

62. Ibid.

63. William B. Wright, “Drowning: Is There a Fixed Period at Which a Drowned Body Will Float?”
The American Journal of the Medical Sciences
51 (July 1853), p. 264. These observations from the mid-nineteenth century correspond with the “body float information” provided in 2005 by John Sanders, Dr. John Whittington and Mark Williams of the
National Underwater Rescue-Recovery Institute in Circleville, Ohio.
See
http://www.twinquarries.com/nurri/body_float_info.pdf
.

64. Blodwen Davies,
A Study of Tom Thomson
(Toronto: Discus Press, 1935), p. 123.

65. For a general account of dry drowning in the context of canoeing, see Charlie Walbridge, “Accident Summary: January–June 2007,”
American Whitewater
(September–October 2007), p. 57. For medical literature, see L.K. DeNicola, J.L. Falk, and M.E. Swanson, “Submersion Injuries in Children and Adults,”
Critical Care Clinics
13 (July 1997),
pp. 477–502; D.L. Levin, F.C. Morriss, L.O. Toro, L.W. Brink, and G.R. Turner, “Drowning and Near-Drowning,”
Pediatric Clinics of North America
40 (April 1993), pp. 321–36; and
C.J. McNamee, D.L. Modry, D. Lien, and A. Alan Conlan, “Drowned Donor Lung for Bilateral Lung Transplantation,”
Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery
126
(September 2003), pp. 910–12.

66.
Toronto Globe,
18 July 1917.

67. Arthur Lismer, Bedford,
NS
, to Dr. James M. MacCallum, 21 July 1917,
MCAC
Archives.

68. On this connection, see the discussion in Hunter, “Mapping Tom,” in Reid,
Tom Thomson,
pp. 41–42.

69. For these details of the cairn's construction, see MacDonald's letter of 13 October 1917 to John Thomson, J.E.H. MacDonald Fonds, Container 1, File 4.

70. Quoted in Hunter, “Mapping Tom,” in Reid,
Tom Thomson,
p. 44. Hunter includes a photograph of the grave, with its plaque and cross, in figure 18.

71.
The Rebel,
November 1919. As Andrew Hunter has shown, although the published version of the poem makes no mention of McKechnie, the handwritten drafts show the dedication.
See “Mapping Tom,” in Reid,
Tom Thomson,
p. 43, p. 322, endnote 99.

72. A.Y. Jackson, London, to J.E.H. MacDonald, Studio Building, 26 August 1917,
J.E.H. MacDonald Fonds, Container 1, File 2a.

73. Quoted in Stacey and Bishop,
J.E.H. MacDonald, Designer,
p. 3.

CHAPTER 7: THE VORTEX OF WAR

1. For these activities, see Grigor,
Arthur Lismer,
pp. 35–38.

2. Arthur Lismer, Bedford,
NS
, to J.E.H. MacDonald, York Mills, 28 February 1918,
J.E.H. MacDonald Fonds, Container 1, File 1.

3. Quoted in Grigor,
Arthur Lismer,
p. 40. Lismer's daughter Marjorie would claim, in contrast to Lismer himself, that he did not miss his train and in fact had no intention of travelling to Halifax that morning: “Because of his Saturday morning classes he generally kept a free day during the week. On this particular morning he had no plans to go to work. We had not yet had breakfast when we heard the noise and saw the smoke in the distance. In our house, nearly twelve miles from the disaster, the damage was not serious—soot all over the breakfast table and a number of shattered windows” (Bridges,
A Border of Beauty,
p. 27).

4. Grigor,
Arthur Lismer,
p. 40.

5. Quoted in Hill,
The Group of Seven,
p. 66.

6.
Daily Mirror,
4 December 1916; the billing of the no man's land photo quoted in Tippett,
Art at the Service of War
, p. 27.

7. Quoted in M.T. Jolly, “Fake Photographs: Making Truth in Photography”
(PhD dissertation, University of Sydney, 2003), p. 33.

8.
Manchester Guardian,
23 December 1919.

9.
The Letters of Rudyard Kipling, 1911–1919,
ed. Thomas Pinney (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1999), p. 299.

10. For the complete history of the
CWRO
and the
CWMF
, see Tippett,
Art at the Service of War.

11. Quoted in Tippett,
Art at the Service of War,
p. 29.

12. A.Y. Jackson, London, to Georgina Jackson, Montreal, 19 August 1917, Naomi Jackson Grove Fonds, Box 96, File 15.

13. Henry Cheal,
The Story of Shoreham
(Hove, Sussex: Cambridges, 1921), pp. 162, 262.

14. A.Y. Jackson, Shoreham-by-Sea, Sussex, to J.E.H. MacDonald, 4 August 1917,
MCAC
Archives.

15. Ibid.

16. A.Y. Jackson, Shoreham, to Georgina Jackson, Montreal, 4 August 1917,
Naomi Jackson Grove Fonds, Box 96, File 20.

17.
The Studio,
15 September 1914.

18. Jackson,
A Painter's Country,
p. 45.

19. A.Y. Jackson, London, to J.E.H. MacDonald, 26 August 1917,
MCAC
Archives.
See Jackson's account of his trepidations in Jackson,
A Painter's Country,
p. 47.

20.
Kitchener-Waterloo Record,
27 November 1999. I am grateful to Susan Mavor for bringing this article to my attention.

21. A.Y. Jackson, London, to Georgina Jackson, Montreal, 22 September 1917,
Naomi Jackson Grove Fonds, Box 96, File 15.

22. Ibid.

23. Jackson,
A Painter's Country,
p. 47.

24. A.Y. Jackson, London, to Georgina Jackson, Montreal, 9 November 1917,
Naomi Jackson Grove Fonds, Box 96, File 15.

25. Jackson,
A Painter's Country,
p. 49.

26.
New York Times,
8 June 1919.

27. A.Y. Jackson, London, to Georgina Jackson, Montreal, 25 June 1918, Naomi Jackson Grove Fonds, Box 96, File 21.

28. A.Y. Jackson, 457316 Signal Station, 60th Canadian Battalion, to J.E.H. MacDonald,
Studio Building, J.E.H. MacDonald Fonds, Container 1, File 2.

29. Jackson,
A Painter's Country,
pp. 45–48.

30. A.Y. Jackson, London, to J.E.H. MacDonald, York Mills, 6 April 1918,
J.E.H. MacDonald Fonds, Container 1, File 2a.

31. Jackson,
A Painter's Country,
p. 48.

32. Ibid.

33. This painting, which Varley would later rename
Stormy Weather, Georgian Bay,
is usually dated to 1920. However, Maria Tippett argues convincingly in favour of the earlier date: see
Stormy Weather,
pp. 77–78. Further evidence in support of Tippett's dating of the painting is the fact that the
OSA
catalogue for 1917 shows that Varley exhibited
Squally Weather, Georgian Bay
in March 1917. However, no 1917 review specifically naming
Squally Weather
exists, making comparisons with
Stormy Weather
impossible.

34. For a recent study, see Alejandro Vergara, ed.,
Patinir
(Madrid: Museo Nacional
del Prado, 2007).

35. The term “northern expressionist” comes from Kenneth Clark. See
Landscape into Art,
pp. 73–107. For his discussion of Van Gogh in this context, see ibid., pp. 197–202.

36.
Canadian Courier,
16 February 1918.

37. Tippett,
Art at the Service of War,
p. 45.

38. Tippett,
Stormy Weather,
p. 85.

39.
The Times,
7 September 1909.

40. Quoted in Tippett,
Stormy Weather,
p. 90.

41. Ibid.

42. Quoted in Sir Alfred Munnings,
The Second Burst
(London: Museum Press, 1951),
p. 30. Munnings was probably the composer of the verses.

43. Quoted in Butler,
Early Modernism,
p. 230. The Futurist Manifesto was first published in
Le Figaro
on 20 February 1909.

44. Quoted in Butler,
Early Modernism,
p. 147.

45. Quoted in Roberto Baronti Marchiò, “The Vortex in the Machine: Futurism in England,” in Günter Berghaus, ed.,
International Futurism in Arts and Literature
(Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2000), p. 102. The member of the audience was Wyndham Lewis.

46. Quoted in Marchiò, “The Vortex in the Machine,” p. 105.

47. Guillaume Apollinaire,
Caligrammes: Poems of War and Peace (1913–1916),
introduction by S.I. Lockerbie (Los Angeles and Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), p. 221.

48.
The Times,
30 April 1915.

49.
New York Times,
8 June 1919.

50. Quoted in Tippett,
Art at the Service of War,
p. 31.

51. Frank Rutter,
Some Contemporary Artists
(London: Leonard Parsons, 1922), p. 212.

52. Andrew Causey, ed.,
Poet and Painter: Letters between Gordon Bottomley and Paul Nash, 1910–1946
(Bristol: Redcliffe, 1990), pp. 42–43.

53. Margot Eates,
Paul Nash: Master of the Image, 1889–1946
(London: John Murray, 1973), p. 21;
The Times,
25 May 1918.

54.
The Observer,
15 June 1914.

55.
Daily Express,
25 February 1915.

56. Quoted in Tippett,
Art at the Service of War,
p. 62.

57.
New York Times,
25 May 1919.

58.
The Times,
2 March 1918.

59. C.R.W. Nevinson,
Paint and Prejudice,
p. 148; and
The Times,
2 March 1918. For Nevinson's war art, see Michael Walsh, “C.R.W. Nevinson: the Modern Artist of Modern War,”
Apollo
(July 2004), pp. 52–57. For his early years as a Futurist, see idem., “Vital English Art: Futurism and the Vortex of London, 1910–14,”
Apollo
(February 2005), pp. 64–71.