[charlene]

This painting of "Algonquin" is beautiful. He painted it as a trbute to one of the artists in the Canadian "Group of Seven" who's mysterious death while out in a canoe in Algonquin Park has remained unsolved. Ken Danby was a "Group of One" Canadian artist who also died while canoeing in Algonquin Park. A place that both artists (and all of the Group of Seven) loved. It's sadly eerie that Ken would paint this picture and 10 years later die there himself.
'Algonquin (in homage to Tom Thomson)'
1997, oil on canvas
30 x 50 in. (76.2 x 127 cm)
Signed and dated lower right

Growing up in Northern Ontario provided me with a strong affinity for the natural environment that was so eloquently responded to by Tom Thomson and his colleagues. As a teenager I'd go off into the bush, set up my easel and canvas and try to imitate their work. (I recall that in my naivety, I didn't anticipate the foolishness of trying to paint a large canvas and then carry it, still wet, through dense bush, with branches scratching both it and me and a plague of black flies in my face.)

The concept for this painting grew out of a number of forays into Algonquin over the years. Friends of ours, Kim and Marilyn Smith, own and operate 'Camp Tanamakoon' on Cache Lake (which is almost 'next door' to Canoe Lake, where Thomson died). They kindly assisted me with my need to explore my ideas from out on the lake and provided their expert canoeist to pose repeatedly for me. Kim's also an authority on Thomson and pointed out to me that his canoe was painted a gun-metal blue.

From its conception, I intended 'Algonquin' to be a subtle tribute to Tom Thomson. But I also wanted it to be a response to the natural beauty that so typifies the grandeur of Ontario's first provincial park.