Defiant Spirits (58 page)

CHAPTER 2: A SEPTENARY FATALITY

1. Quoted in Owen Dudley Edwards and Jennifer H. Litster, “The End of Canadian Innocence: L.M. Montgomery and the First World War,” in Irene Gammel and Elizabeth Epperly, eds.,
L.M. Montgomery and Canadian Culture
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999),
p. 45, note 5.

2. Papineau's famous open letter to his cousin Henri Bourassa, an opponent of French-Canadian participation in the war, was first published in the
Montreal Gazette
on
28 July 1916, and then reprinted in
The Times
on 22 August 1916. It has been included
(with Bourassa's response) in Thorner and Frohn-Nielsen,
A Country Nourished on
Self-Doubt,
pp. 218–25.

3. Brown and R. Cook,
Canada, 1896–1921,
p. 287.

4. Quoted in ibid., p. 338.

5. Quoted in Craig Heron, “Introduction,”
The Workers' Revolt in Canada, 1917–1925
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), p. 5.

6.
Montreal Gazette,
1 April 1918,
The Times,
2, 3, 4 April 1918.

7. Quoted in Philip Ziegler,
King Edward
VIII
: The Official Biography
(London: Collins, 1990),
p. 119. For the report of the Prince's visit to Fort William, see
The Times,
10 September 1919.

8.
Canadian Courier,
30 August 1919.

9. Ibid.

10. Quoted in Mackintosh, “The Development of Higher Urban Life,” p. 704.

11. Quoted in Zurier,
Picturing the City,
p. 41.

12. MacDonald regarded Reid as one of the “pioneers and encouragers” of Canadian art, and he admired his City Hall murals: see J.E.H. MacDonald, 40 Duggan Ave., Toronto, to
F.B. Housser, unsent letter dated 20 December 1926,
MCAC
Archives.

13. Quoted in Marylin Jean McKay,
A National Soul: Canadian Mural Painting, 1860s–1930s
(Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2002), p. 49.

14. Quoted in McKay,
A National Soul,
p. 49. For Reid's murals in Toronto, see ibid.,
pp. 39–41, 159–61.

15. Quoted in J.M. Bumstead, “Making Culture,”
Canadian Historical Review
72 (1991), p. 265.

16.
The Statesman,
22 March 1919;
The Rebel,
November 1919.

17. MacDonald described this journey in an article in the December 1919 issue of
The Lamps
entitled “
ACR
10557.”

18.
The Times,
19 September 1919; and Dan Douglas,
Northern Algoma: A People's History
(Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1995), p. 94.

19. Frank Johnston, Hubert,
ACR
, to Florence Johnston, Toronto, 29 September, 1 October, 6 October 1919, Mary Bishop Rodrik and Franz Johnston Collection,
R
320, Volume 1,
File 8,
LAC
.

20.
New York Times,
9 September 1919;
The Times,
10 September 1919.

21. John Taliaferro,
Charles M. Russell: The Life and Legend of America's Cowboy Artist
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1996; reprinted, Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003),p. 216. The painting given to the Prince of Wales was
When Law Dulls the Edge of Chance.

22. Hill,
The Group of Seven,
p. 84.

23. Quoted in Hill,
The Group of Seven,
p. 88.

24. Quoted in Farr,
J.W. Beatty,
p. 26.

25. Carl Schaefer, interview with Charles Hill.

26. Lawren Harris, Woodend, Allandale,
ON
, to J.E.H. MacDonald, the Studio Building,
Toronto, 7 August 1919, J.E.H. MacDonald Fonds, Container 1, File 3.

27. H.P. Blavatsky,
The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion and
Philosophy
(London: Theosophical Publishing Co., 1888), vol. 1, p. 158.

28. H.P. Blavatsky, “The Number Seven and Our Society,”
Theosophist
(September 1880);
and
AE
, “The Hour of Twilight,”
Irish Theosophist,
15 February 1893, “The Element Language,”
Irish Theosophist,
15 October 1893, and “The Ascending Cycle,”
Irish Theosophist,
15 November 1893.

29. Quoted in Mason,
A Grand Eye for Glory,
p. 38.

CHAPTER 3: ARE THESE NEW CANADIAN PAINTERS CRAZY?

1. Jackson,
A Painter's Country,
p. 55.

2.
Canadian Magazine,
December 1916.

3. Quoted in Milton A. Cohen,
Movement, Manifesto, Melee: The Modernist Group, 1910–1914
(Lanham,
MD
: Lexington Books, 2004), p. 299.

4. Peter Howard Selz, Harold Joachim, and Perry T. Rathbone,
Max Beckmann
(New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1964), p. 23.

5. Alasdair Alpin MacGregor,
Percyval Tudor-Hart, 1873–1954: Portrait of an Artist
(London: P.R. Macmillan, 1961), p. 115.

6.
Toronto Globe,
2 September 1920.

7. Percy Wyndham Lewis,
Rude Assignment: An Intellectual Biography
(London: Hutchinson, 1950), p. 129.

8. Quoted in Cohen,
Movement, Manifesto, Melee,
p. 180. For Cohen's discussion of how modernism became a casualty of the war, see pp. 180–82.

9. Quoted in Robin Walz,
Modernism: A Short History of a Big Idea
(Harlow, Essex: Pearson, 2008), p. 77.

10. A.J. Casson, “Reminiscences of the Group of Seven,”
The Empire Club of Canada
Speeches, 1982–1983,
ed. A. Carlyle Dunbar and Douglas L. Derry (Toronto: Empire Club Foundation, 1984) p. 52.

11. See Hill,
The Group of Seven,
p. 88, figure 33. William Colgate claimed that Harris was
the author of the piece: see
Canadian Art: Its Origin & Development
(Toronto: Ryerson
Press, 1967), p. 82.

12. Quoted in Tippett,
Stormy Weather,
p. 134.

13. Quoted in Tooby, “Orienting the True North,” in Tooby,
The True North,
p. 24–25.

14.
Canadian Courier,
22 May 1920.

15.
Christian Science Monitor,
7 June 1920.

16.
Canadian Courier,
22 May 1920.

17. Quoted in Tippett,
Stormy Weather,
p. 128.

18.
The Rebel
3, no. 5, 1919.

19. A.Y. Jackson, Toronto, to Georgina Jackson, Montreal, 11 May 1920, Naomi Jackson
Grove Fonds, Box 96, File 22.

20.
Toronto Daily Star,
7 May 1920;
Mail & Empire,
10 May 1920.

21. Quoted in Finlay,
The Force of Culture,
p. 29.

22. Quoted in ibid., p. 128.

23. F.H. Varley, Thornhill, to Eric Brown, 29 November 1919, photocopy of original held in Christopher Varley Curatorial Papers, Series
II
, File 1,
MCAC
.

24. For the contemporary appreciation of this painting, see Mellen,
The Group of Seven,
p. 96.

25. A.Y. Jackson, Toronto, to Georgina Jackson, Montreal, 11 May 1920, Naomi Jackson Grove Fonds, Box 96, File 22.

26.
Mail & Empire,
10 May 1920;
Canadian Courier,
22 May 1920.

27. Quoted in Hill,
The Group of Seven,
p. 95.

28. Jackson,
A Painter's Country,
p. 65.

29.
Canadian Courier,
30 August 1919.

30. For MacDonald's ex libris, see Stacey and Bishop,
J.E.H. MacDonald, Designer,
pp. 100–103. For Jackson's mural, see Jackson,
A Painter's Country,
pp. 65–66. Some of
Jackson's drawings for the mural are in the Firestone Collection at the Ottawa Art Gallery.
I am grateful to Chris Finn for information on tracking down (via fire plans) information
on the Kent-McClain factory and the fate of the mural, which seems to have been
destroyed in the 1930s.

31. Quoted in Hill,
The Group of Seven,
p. 125.

32.
The Ubyssey,
18 November 1920.

33.
Canadian Bookman,
December 1920.

34. For this article and the responses to it, see Anton Wagner, “Saving the Nation's Aesthetic Soul: B.K. Sandwell at the
Montreal Herald,
1900–1914, and
Saturday Night,
1932–1951,” in Anton Wagner, ed.,
Establishing Our Boundaries: English-Canadian
Theatre Criticism
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), pp. 188–89.

35.
Canadian Bookman,
April 1919.

36. Walt Whitman,
Specimen Days
(Philadelphia: David McKay, 1882), pp. 164–65.

37. Charles Sangster, “The St. Lawrence and the Saguenay,” in
The St. Lawrence and the
Saguenay, and Other Poems
(Auburn,
NY
: Miller Orton & Mulligan, 1956), lines 1066–67.

38. Eric Brown, Ottawa, to Francis H. Johnston, 96 Keewatin Avenue, Toronto, 21 August 1918, Mary Bishop Rodrik and Franz Johnston Collection,
R
320, Volume 1,
File 7,
LAC
.

39. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar,” in Joel Porte, ed.,
Essays and Lectures
(New York: The Library of America 1983), pp. 70, 53.

40. Walt Whitman, “By Blue Ontario's Shore,” in Francis Murphy ed.,
Walt Whitman: The Complete Poems
(London: Penguin, 1996), lines 3–4.

41. Quoted in H. Barbara Weinberg, Doreen Bolger and David Park Curry, “Introduction,”
American Impressionism and Realism: The Painting of Modern Life, 1885–1915
(New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994), pp. 30, 31, 58.

42. Quoted in Susan G. Larkin, “Hassam in New England, 1889–1918,” in H. Barbara Weinberg, ed.,
Childe Hassam: American Impressionist
(New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2004), p. 119.

43. Quoted in H. Barbara Weinberg, “Hassam's Travels, 1892–1914,” in Weinberg,
Childe Hassam,
pp. 188–89.

44. Quoted in Donna M. Cassidy,
Marsden Hartley: Race, Region, and Nation
(Lebanon,
nh
: University Press of New England, 2005), p. 20. For Stieglitz and
nationalism after the First World War, see Matthew Baigell, “American Landscape
Painting and National Identity: The Stieglitz Circle and Emerson,”
Art Criticism
4 (1987),
pp. 27–47.

45. Quoted in Emily Ballew Neff,
The Modern West: American Landscapes, 1890–1950
(Houston: Museum of Fine Arts, 2006), p. 159. On Hartley's work in New Mexico and its nationalist implications, see also Heather Hole and Barbara B. Lynes,
Marsden Hartley and the West: The Search for an American Modernism
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007).

46.
New York Times,
1 August 1920. In 1922 Wyer changed his name to Raymond Henniker-Heaton.

47.
Worcester Telegram,
8 November 1920.

48.
Edmonton Journal,
2 April 1921.

49.
Moose Jaw Evening Times,
13 May 1921.

50.
Moose Jaw Evening Times,
11, 13 May 1921.

51. Quoted in Hill,
The Group of Seven,
p. 100.

52. A.Y. Jackson to Catherine Breithaupt, 17 January 1921, Catherine Breithaupt
Bennett Papers.

53. William J. Wood, Midland,
ON
, to Arthur Lismer, 3 November 1920,
MCAC
Archives. Wood has just been visited in Midland by Jackson—who “looked particularly fit”—
and so was able to report Jackson's comments about the trip.

54. Jackson,
A Painter's Country,
p. 65.

55.
Toronto Daily Mail & Empire,
18 December 1920.

56.
Moose Jaw Evening Times,
11 May 1921;
Worcester Telegram,
8 November 1920.

57. Doris Speirs, interview with Charles Hill.

58. Eric Brown, Ottawa, to Frank Johnston, Toronto, 13 March 1919, Mary Bishop Rodrik
and Franz Johnston Collection,
R
320, Volume 1, File 7,
LAC
.

59. For the price of the house, see Harold R. Watson, Toronto, to Mrs. F.H. Johnston, 96 Keewatin Avenue, Toronto, 28 September 1920, Mary Bishop Rodrik and Franz Johnston Collection,
R
320, Volume 1, File 35,
LAC
.

CHAPTER 4: MULTIPLES OF UGLINESS

1. Quoted in Marius Barbeau, “On Krieghoff,” in Fetherling,
Documents in Canadian Art,
p. 21. Jackson claimed that it was “probable” that his grandfather knew Krieghoff (
A Painter's Country,
p. 1). On this count, see also J. Russell Harper,
Krieghoff
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979), p. 29.

2. Quoted in Barbeau, “On Krieghoff,” in Fetherling,
Documents in Canadian Art,
pp. 21–22.

3. Quoted in Hill,
The Group of Seven,
p. 290.

4. A.Y. Jackson, 4149 Michigan Ave., Chicago, to Georgina Jackson, Montreal,
11 November 1906, Naomi Jackson Groves Fonds, Container 96, File 3; and A.Y. Jackson, London, to Georgina Jackson, Montreal, 18 June 1905, ibid., Container 96, File 1.

5. Quoted in Wayne Larsen,
A.Y. Jackson: A Love for the Land
(Montreal:
XYZ
Publishing, 2003), pp. 81–82.

6. Jackson,
A Painter's Country,
p. 71.

7. A.Y. Jackson, Montreal, to Catherine Briethaupt, Boston, 17 January 1921,
Catherine Breithaupt Bennett Papers.

8. William Dean Howells,
A Chance Acquaintance
(Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., 1873),
pp. 18–19.