Autumn in Orillia by Franklin Carmichael

Description

Giclee Prints on canvas or paper of Autumn in Orillia by Franklin Carmichael

The youngest original member of The group of Seven, Frank Carmichael was born in Orillia, Ontario, where he first worked in his father’s carriage shop. His interest in art took him to Toronto in 1911, where he studied at Central Technical School and at the Ontario College of Art. He was employed by the commercial art firms of Grip Ltd. and Rous and Mann, where his colleagues included MacDonald, Tom Thomson, Frank Johnston, Arthur Lismer and F.H. Varley. The war cut short his studies at the Academie des Beaux Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, after only one year. Returning to Toronto, he found space in the new Studio Building on Severn Street, sharing work room with Tom Thomson and mingling with the other artists there.

While working with the men who were to form The Group of Seven, Carmichael was included on weekend sketch trips and showed great progress. However, with his marriage in 1915, responsibilities to family and work prevented Carmichael from joining in the sketching trips to Algonquin Park and Algoma undertaken by the others in the later years of the decade. It was not until the major excursions of 1923-24 that Carmichael once again travelled north.

Between times his paintings were drawn from weekend sketching trips to areas not far from Toronto or from his family home in Orillia. October Gold of 1922 was based on a sketch done at Lansing in North York near Toronto, yet it reveals the interests and interpretation typical of The Group of Seven: it could represent a scene of northern wilderness, for there is no hint of nearby urbanization and autumn colours are played against the hills. For Franklin Carmichael, the La Cloche region north of Georgian Bay proved a continuing source of inspiration. The artist first visited the area in 1926 and built a summer cottage there in 1936. La Cloche is the area depicted in the artist’s mature work, such as Light and Shadow – strongly designed and delineated vistas of rolling hills, lakes and expansive skies.