A Grand Eye for Glory: A Life of Franz Johnston

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY

For Aileen, Oliver, and Linda

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY A Life of Franz Johnston

ROGER BURFORD MASON

DUNDURN PRESS TORONTO • OXFORD

Copyright © Roger Burford Mason 1998 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press Limited. Permission to photocopy should be requested from the Canadian Reprography Collective. Publisher: Anthony Hawke Editor: Barry Jowett and Liedewy Hawke Design: Scott Reid Printer: Transcontinental Printing Inc. Front Cover Painting: Fire-Swept Algoma, 1920, National Gallery of Canada Back Cover Painting: Batchawana Falls, 1918, Winnipeg Art Gallery Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Burford Mason, Roger, 1943A grand eye for glory Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-55002-305-5 1. Johnston, Frank H. (Francis Hans), 1888-1949. 2. Painters — Canada — Biography. I. Title ND249.J615B87 1998 759.11 C98-930782-4 1 2 3 4 BJ 01 00 99 98

THE CANADA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS SINCE 1957

LE CONSEIL DES ARTS DU CANADA

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Book Publishing Industry Development Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage.

DEPUIS 1957

Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credit in subsequent editions. Printed and bound in Canada.

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CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

6

INTRODUCTION

7

CHAPTER ONE: Early Years

15

CHAPTER TWO: Johnston the War Artist

25

CHAPTER THREE: From a Boxcar in the Algoma Country

31

CHAPTER FOUR: Johnston in Winnipeg

41

CHAPTER FIVE: The Split with the Group of Seven

53

CHAPTER SIX: Snow and Light: Painting the Northland

59

CHAPTER SEVEN: Painting the Arctic

73

CHAPTER EIGHT: Slim Pickings

83

I REMEMBER: An Interview with Wenawae Stevenson

87

BIBLIOGRAPHY

97

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am indebted to the following for help in

habits, interests and preoccupations; Leon

uncovering the life of Franz Johnston, and for

Warmski and the staff at the Archives of Ontario

guidance concerning his career and reputation as

in Toronto; and Charles Hill, Curator of Canadian

an artist: Mrs. Wenawae Stevenson, daughter of

Art, the National Gallery of Canada.

Franz Johnston; Raymond Peringer, archivist at

Parts of this book have appeared in Art

the Arts and Letters Club, Toronto; David Shaw;

Impressions, Canadian Medical Association Journal,

the staff of the Edward P. Taylor Research Centre

Queens Quarterly, The Northern Miner, and This

and Archives at the Art Gallery of Ontario; the

Country Canada.

staff of the Art Section of the Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library; Marija Vilcins, Reference Librarian at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa; John Snell, Curator of Art at the Arts and Letters Club, and the Board of the Arts and Letters Club for allowing me access to their extensive files and library; Catherine Shields, Librarian at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, for her help in obtaining information about Johnston's Winnipeg years; Franklin Arbuckle, for engaging and informative conversations which gave me many insights concerning the informal Franz Johnston, not to mention much about his work

INTRODUCTION he first exhibition of the painters who

T

called themselves the Group of Seven opened on May 7, 1920, at the Art Museum

of Toronto in The Grange, the beautiful old building behind the present Art Gallery of Ontario, which served as Ontario's first official art gallery. If the paintings the public went to see in that exhibition were not exactly novel — some of the members of the group had already exhibited similar, and in some cases the same, works in a smaller exhibition at the same gallery the previous year — they were, nevertheless, an exciting and significant illustration of the fact that a new movement was developing in Canadian art which, in shaking off the inherited and increasingly

7

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY inappropriate hand of two centuries of European

standards and practices, the majority of art critics

influence, took greater account of the unique

reviewed the exhibition favourably, giving the lie

nature of the Canadian landscape than painting in

to a mythology cultivated in later years by the

Canada had ever done before.

group's members, who liked to portray the group's

The painters were ridiculed by traditionalists

beginnings as a heroic and rebellious struggle

such as H. F. Gadsby, the conservative art critic of

against the united attack of unappreciative critics.

the Toronto Daily Star who, in a contemptuous

Although never as beleaguered as they liked to

1913 art review, had called the painters of the

claim, it was nevertheless unquestionably true that

northlands "the Hot Mush school" in derisive

this new group of painters was making art

reference to their use of thick pigments and strong

differently, and that a new school of Canadian

colours. Yet when the group exhibited in May

painting was born at that exhibition, whose

1920, they found many supporters among the

influence on the whole of culture in Canada

Toronto public and in the Toronto press, while

continues to supply us with some of our most

both sides seemed to agree that the exhibition had

powerful and important iconography.

thrown down a gauntlet regarding the direction

Of the seven artists who exhibited more than

Canadian art would take, a gauntlet whose

seventy paintings at that first exhibition, one,

challenge could not be ignored.

Frank Johnston (as he was called in 1920 — he

The show was an unqualified success, both

changed his name to Franz six years later for quite

critically and financially. Dozens of paintings were

exotic reasons) exhibited more works than any of

sold and hundreds of people were introduced to

the others, yet when the history of the group is

visions of the beauty and majesty of a country,

pursued in biographies, commentaries, and books

their country, that they had never seen or

of art criticism, he is the one who is either

considered, and they were delighted.

ignored, or at best dealt with peremptorily, while

Despite some reservations on the part of some

his name appears as a minor footnote to the larger

of the older critics, whose education in art had

history of art in Canada.

been tied for a lifetime to received European

A. Y. Jackson and Lawren Harris barely 8

INTRODUCTION mention Johnston in their autobiographies, while

reached six or seven thousand dollars, and one

Peter Mellen and Dennis Reid, in their own very

sold for nearly twenty-three thousand dollars.

excellent surveys of the group, consign him and

With this in mind, it is interesting to consider

his contribution to the sidelines, so that in any

how such an artist could become so marginalized

collection of the most authoritative books about

from a community in which he was once a central

the Group of Seven and their work it would be

figure. After all, Johnston was a fundamental

difficult to make up ten pages in total that concern

influence on the development of Canadian art and

Johnston and his art.

culture from as early as 1906, when he was one of

And yet Toronto journalist Donald Jones, in

a close-knit group of artists working together at

an article in the Toronto Star in September 1983,

the famous commercial art firm of Grip Ltd. He

quotes the art critic Pearl McCarthy as

shared with these artists their early painting trips

considering that "Canada has probably produced

to the wilderness, discussed and shared their

no virtuoso in any technical line from finance to

experimentation, and reveled in the excitement of

poetry to surpass Franz Johnston."

their new art. Johnston was elected to full

Prefiguring McCarthy, for thirty years between

membership of the Ontario Society of Artists at

the middle of the 1920s and the late 1940s the best

the young age of thirty-two, and the Royal

critics writing for the major Canadian newspapers

Canadian Academy ten years later (although he

scarcely had a bad word to say about his paintings,

characteristically resigned from both on matters

whose best examples are perennially popular

of principle.) That he was, furthermore, by virtue

exhibits at the National Gallery, the Art Gallery of

of constant and strong sales over more than

Ontario, the Art Gallery of Winnipeg, the

twenty-five years, widely considered to be the

McMichael Canadian Collection in Kleinburg, the

most financially successful artist of his generation

London (Ontario) Public Art Gallery, and the Art

— A Toronto Telegram reviewer in 1934 guessed

Gallery of Hamilton, and are valued works in

that Johnston was "probably the most sold of any

dozens of private collections. Indeed, at an

Canadian painter" — contributes to the enigma of

auction in the fall of 1997, paintings by Johnston

the energetic, busy, successful Johnston reduced to

9

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY little more than a mere shadow lurking in the

In his 1979 book, Memoirs of an Art Dealer,

background of the famous Group of Seven, and

Blair Laing, the prominent Toronto art dealer,

more generally, of Canadian art history.

described the Johnston he knew as "an aggressive and jovial salesman, and happiest in the role of

By every account, Johnston was a charming, good-

selling his own pictures. A bit of a rake and a great

natured, genial character who was known and

ladies' man, he would appear resplendent in an

loved for "his little beard and twinkling eyes and

artist's tarn, a bow tie with long side ribbons, and

ready laughter," as a Toronto Telegram writer noted

a well-trimmed imperial beard. By the mid-1940s,

in June 1934. He was, the writer continued, a man

Johnston was selling his pictures for more money

who "loves life and living more than paint and

by far than any other living Canadian."

painting,"

which

was

probably

only

Johnston was successful because he worked

impressionistically correct, although the statement

hard at being successful.

does convey the energy and life-force of the man

"Despite all his ostentatiousness," Laing writes,

who loved to explore Ontario's wildest and most

"Johnston was one of the hardest working and

inaccessible places, who wrote poetry and fairy

most enthusiastic painters I have even known. If

stories for his children, and loved going to the

one had a customer for a certain type of painting

movies and taking part in amateur theatricals.

he might stay up and work all night, if necessary,

With his Vandyke beard and black beret — which

to have it ready for the next day, and a sale."

he said he had to wear because the public expected

In a career which was to make him one of the

it of an artist — Johnston played the artist to the

most sought-after artists in Canada for upwards

gallery, and the gallery returned him its affection,

of twenty years, Johnston also made an

installing him as its favourite son. Vivacious,

important contribution to art education in

dedicated, and hard-working, Johnston loved

Canada. Before he had reached his fortieth

painting, singing, games, handicrafts, playing

birthday, he was invited to take over and rebuild

practical jokes on his family and friends, and

the Winnipeg School of Art, where he was a

almost anything intelligent and absorbing.

gifted and admired teacher and an extremely

10

INTRODUCTION effective principal, and to direct the Winnipeg

the case with ebullient characters, "a very shy and

Art Gallery. He performed both tasks admirably

private person" who "wounded no one and yet he

for four years before he returned to teach at the

was deeply vulnerable." Nevertheless he was,

Ontario College of Art in Toronto.

Rodrik wrote, "a hard man to be near if you were

During his time in Winnipeg, his contribution

vain, or weak or lazy (because) his example caused a bitter criticism of self."

to the developing culture of the city went beyond his formal duties as an educator and gallery director. He believed that art could, and should,

How could such a man, how could such a

touch everyone's life and, the better to promote

successful artist, have come to be so disdained and

his views, he wrote a popular weekly column

disregarded? There are two elements which have

about every aspect of art in a clear, direct, and

united to depress Johnston's reputation, and both

unpatronizing style in a mass-circulation city

are works of his own hand.

newspaper. He subsequently taught at his own

The first charge against him has followed him

private art school which he and his son, the artist

since the early 1920s, and lingers still as the first

Paul Rodrik, built entirely by themselves on land

"fact" about Johnston to come to mind for the

Johnston had acquired on the shores of Georgian

many who know about the art of the period but

Bay, close to the area where his wife's family had

little about Johnston himself, and that is that he is

lived for generations, and during all these varied

widely perceived to have been disloyal to the

endeavours he exhibited constantly, in good

Group of Seven. Johnston was a fiercely individual man, as

galleries and in international exhibitions, to

were the other members of the group, but whereas

almost universal acclaim. Jolly, sociable, and outgoing, Johnston was

they continued to exhibit together as the Group of

nevertheless thoughtful and generous to his

Seven until 1931, in various manifestations and

family, students, and friends, although his son

with many additions, Johnston withdrew from the

Paul Rodrik has also written about his father's

group after its inaugural exhibition in 1920 and in

doppelganger, the Johnston who was, as is so often

later years went so far as to criticize it for 11

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY becoming the orthodoxy it had set out to protest.

generously declared). He was, furthermore,

He compounded his heresy by going his own way

somewhat exercised by the idea that the work of

almost immediately with a succession of

the group was not sufficiently individuated; his

independent exhibitions. Indeed, later in the same

oldest daughter, Frances-Anne Johnston, recalled

year as the first Group of Seven show, he had a

her father being very annoyed when a visitor to

solo exhibition of his new work at Eaton's Gallery

the group's first exhibition in 1920 delivered the

on College Street in Toronto which was well

opinion that A. Y. Jackson's work and Johnston's

received, and critically and financially successful.

could scarcely be told apart.

The next year, in 1921, Johnston moved to

To the individualist Johnston, who professed

Winnipeg to take up the position of principal of

his desire to paint the Canadian landscape the way

the art school and director of the gallery there, but

he saw it, and not through the filter of any

his defection from the group had caused

particular ideology, the career he had charted for

something of a storm of controversy in the small

himself demanded that he move on from their

and self-absorbed teacup of Toronto culture, so

position as radical Canadian nationalist painters

that when he returned to the city in 1924, and to

rather sooner than they themselves decided to do.

public questions about his defection, he felt

He had his own vision of Canada to pursue, and a

obliged to explain his position in a newspaper

growing family to support. He worked, as his son

interview. In it he claimed that his membership in

remarked many years later about the controversy,

the group had been, from his point of view,

through the seven ages of man, and not through

merely a step in his own development as an artist.

the aging of seven men.

None of the members had signed any kind of

The second criticism of Johnston has rather

allegiance to each other, he explained, and he had

crudely categorized his work as being more

never felt constrained by the group, nor especially

traditional, with the implied pejorative of

loyal to the notion of the group (as opposed to his

decorative, or "prettier" than that of his six

loyalty and affection for its members as his

colleagues. Furthermore, the claim goes, he was an

friends, which he roundly, frequently, and

artist who was too conscious of the kind of art

12

INTRODUCTION which would sell to the wide variety of home

Franklin Arbuckle, considers that his best work is

owners who attended his numerous exhibitions,

only bettered, among the Group of Seven, by the

and too ready to paint the pictures those patrons

work of J. E. H. MacDonald at his best.

seemed to demand.

"Franz has a grand eye for glory," Augustus

Certainly, over a long and successful career,

Bridle wrote in an exhibition review towards the

his work is uneven and he painted his share of

end of Johnston's life, in 1942. "He seldom paints

shallowly narrative, decorative, and sometimes

anything because it's grim or ugly."

meretricious paintings in which one can often see

In the years after the creative ferment of the

a commercial manipulation of subject, colour,

Algoma period, Johnston rose often to the heights

and form to create easy emotional effects. In

that some of his earlier painting had achieved but

addition, he seems to have had an addiction to

he was, at bottom, Arbuckle has observed, "very

whimsical and fey titles whose archness often

interested in making money" and during his life

undercuts the seriousness and excellence of his

he made, and spent, plenty of it. However, to

work: Rhapsodic, Dream Days, Afternoon Sunlight,

disdain Johnston as the money-loving apostate of

Cloisonne Sunset, Land o' Dreams, Turquoise and

the holy mission of the Group of Seven, as many

Gold — they are titles which hark back to his days

have done, flies in the face of the artist's own

as a commercial illustrator and artist, designed

limited intentions with regard to his membership

certainly to catch the eye and fall euphoniously

of that High Church, and while the defection may

on the ear of his wide variety of followers, who

explain why he has not generally been included in

flocked in their thousands to his shows and

books concerning the Group of Seven, nor

bought his pictures to decorate and give some

received the same recognition and respect as them

cultural depth to their homes.

in relation to the history of the group, it does not

However, his best work, no critic has ever

explain why, as an independent and successful

denied, is as good as, and frequently better than,

artist, Johnston has not been accorded more

that of the other members of the group, while his

regard for the substantial and varied body of work

son-in-law, the noted painter and designer

he did after he left the group.

13

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY Moreover, to denigrate his entire oeuvre because he was financially successful — in the mid-1950s, with the Depression squeezing the economic lifeblood out of the country, he sold one painting for ten thousand dollars — is to ignore not only the goal Johnston set out for himself very early on, which was to be a successful professional painter on his own terms, but also the very real depth and excellence of many of his paintings, for at their best, as the Toronto Telegram review of a Johnston exhibition in June 1934 noted: One does not need to be told, of a Johnston canvas, "that it is a cold lonely road. The light is failing. The night is near. The whispering wind is the only sound in a silence so deep that even one's breath can be heard." One knows inevitably in looking at a picture by him meant to tell you those things. Settlers and bushmen, timber cruisers, lumbermen and prospectors can look at a Johnston canvas and say "Yes." What they would have said "Yes" to then, we can still say "Yes" to today.

14

ONE EARLY YEARS n 1888, Toronto was a dull, suffocatingly

i

provincial city in a still-developing country on the fringes of what was one of the world's

greatest political and trading empires. Like Ontario — the province of which it was the capital city — and like Canada itself, Toronto looked to England for its models in politics, culture, and society, and — except for the prevailing accent of its people — was largely indistinguishable from English cities such as Manchester or Bristol. Busy in its determination to make money, Toronto was conservative in its attitudes, and uncompromising in the received wisdom of its white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant moral, and cultural rectitude. In 1888, Toronto was still a small city, with

15

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY muddy lanes, fields, and wooded hills within

At the time of his birth, and for twenty years

walking distance of its downtown core, and vast

after it, the family lived in a small wooden house

miles of scarcely broken land beyond the city

with stuccoed walls, long ago destroyed for

limits. On the cusp of the automobile age, but

redevelopment, at 121 Shaw Street, between

with the horse still at the centre of all

Bathurst Avenue and Dufferin Street, close to

transportation, there were still plank roads in

Givens Street School where the children had their

some quarters of the city, as well as roads of

first education. There, and at home with kind and

hard-packed earth, while the city's many hilly

indulgent parents, Frank showed an early interest

inclines were likely to be paved with bricks,

in painting. His son, the late Paul Rodrik, has

whose uneven surfaces gave the horses better

written that his father remembered being given a

footing in wet weather.

present at the age of six of "a fine new slate" on

At the level of daily life, the Toronto of 1888

which he drew endlessly.

was a patchwork of communities where horse-

Stocky, sturdy, easy-going, and confident,

drawn streetcars plied tree-lined streets and the

Frank, as he was universally called, enjoyed his

Orange Parade and the church social were the

years at school, where he was an accomplished

predominant social occasions for the majority of

athlete, sportsman, and singer who was,

the city's inhabitants.

according to his son's memoir, "neither late nor

It was in this city on June 19, 1888, that

absent throughout his school years; his medals to

Francis Hans Johnston was born to a modest

this effect attest to a determined spirit." Another

Toronto family, the middle son of three. The

son, Franz Lawren Johnston, recalled in an

father of the man who was to help stand Canadian

interview in the Hamilton Spectator in 1965 that

culture and national identity on its ear was Hans

his father had been a good enough ballplayer to

Hamilton Johnston, an Irish immigrant who was a

have seriously considered a career as a

painter on the staff of the old Toronto city hall.

professional baseball pitcher.

The baby's mother was Elizabeth Roderick, from

Popular and well-thought-of, even as a youth,

Scottish immigrant stock.

Frank Johnston was a clever mimic and an

16

EARLY YEARS inveterate practical joker, the latter a characteristic

shafts and was about to run when a kindly

which continued to endear him to his family and

voice said, "Look here kid, I wanna show

friends throughout his life, although it

you sumpin." I stopped and peered down

occasionally created difficulties that took all his

and a grey face, all smiling, called my

charm and ingenuity to surmount. Years later, in

attention to a chestnut growing in the thin

an article in the Winnipeg Mirror in April 1924,

earth where it had tumbled down the

Frank Johnston recalled an incident from his

grating and had struggled for life without

childhood which, he claimed, had played a large

much of a foundation. It was tall and pale,

part in sensitizing him to Nature as a basis for his

but strong in its effort to reach the light and

later art.

its effort was futile because it was in poor soil and the first frost would finish it ...

As a small boy I carried newspapers;

[but] in its short life it gave an unfortunate

among my customers was Warden

many happy thoughts and kept his mind

Gilmour of what was then known as the

upon Nature, the source of art.

Central Prison. To deliver the evening paper I was obliged to walk past numerous

In 1904, when he was sixteen and "of equal

cells that were below the level (of the

prowess in athletics, gymnastics, song and the

ground) and had gratings over small air

beginnings of his art," according to Paul Rodrik's

shafts in front of each barred window.

account, Frank was apprenticed as a designer to

I was always nervous about passing

the Toronto jewellers Ryrie Brothers, for whom he

those cells ... but always braving it because

did at least one design which has been preserved.

of the prestige it gave me with the other

But he did not last there long. Showing the

boys. One evening, in early September

characteristic love of mischief and the spirit of

when on my way back from delivering the

light-heartedness that was to delight his family

warden's paper I was startled by the sharp

and friends throughout his life, Johnston played

clapping of hands down in one of the air

one practical joke too many when he put a pail of 17

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY water above the transom of the office door and

"Grip" was the name of the eponymous raven

drenched his employer, the elder Mr. Ryrie, rather

of Edgar Allen Poe's famous poem, which the

than the intended victim, a workshop colleague.

company's founder, a Toronto cartoonist called

Johnston was dismissed.

John Bengough, used as his pseudonym. Apart

His brother Robert, who was to become a

from being the place where Bengough worked on

distinguished magazine illustrator in New York,

his cartoons, the Grip studio was principally

but was at the time a commercial artist in

engaged in advertising and commercial design,

Toronto, managed to secure a position for Frank

specializing in the Art Nouveau style, at which

at the well-known design studio of Brigdens Ltd.

most of the members of the Group of Seven

in Toronto in 1906, where his first work was

became proficient, and whose influence may be

illustrating catalogues for Brigdens' customers. It

traced in their work. Commercial work it certainly

was the beginning of a friendship with the

was, with considerable pressure to produce copy

youngest Brigden son, the artist Fred Brigden,

quickly and efficiently and little opportunity for

that, at one time in the 1930s, saw the two sharing

creative self-expression. Nevertheless, Grip gave

the top floor of the Arts and Letters Club in

struggling artists an opportunity to earn a living

Toronto as a studio. Theirs was a lifetime of good

at their craft and, more importantly for the

friendship, although they were very different, as

history of Canadian art in the early decades of this

people and as artists.

century, it provided a meeting ground for five of

While he was working at Brigdens, Johnston

the seven artists who were to form the Group of

enrolled in classes at the Central Technical School

Seven. They were Johnston, Fred Varley, Arthur

on Harbord Street in Toronto, studying there with

Lismer, J. E. H. MacDonald, and Franklin

Gustav Hahn, and later took classes at the Ontario

Carmichael. Only A. Y. Jackson and Lawren Harris

College of Art under William Cruikshank and G.

— the one a Montrealer, and the other the son of

A. Reid, all three noted Canadian artists of their

one of Canada's wealthiest families — were never

time. During this time, he moved from Brigdens

employed there, but Tom Thomson was, and

to Grip Ltd., a Toronto graphic design studio.

influenced, and was influenced by, the others. It is

18

EARLY YEARS an act of faith, referred to in a number of sources

something other than a living, for in its pursuit of

(although there is no primary written evidence to

commercial success, it gave them an opportunity

substantiate it), that Thomson painted his first

to learn about the effective use of colour and form

outdoor oil sketch under Johnston's guidance,

in a way formal art education could not. The well-

very probably in the area around York Mills, an

known Toronto artist Franklin Arbuckle was a

area of Toronto where Johnston was then living

student in Johnston's classes at the Ontario

and which was then still largely rural.

College of Art in Toronto in the 1920s and later

Undoubtedly, student and teacher each taught,

became Johnston's son-in-law and good friend. In

and each learned, something from the other, but

a speech to the Arts and Letters Club in Toronto

Johnston especially benefited from what he

on November 16, 1988, at a dinner to launch an

learned from Thomson, to the extent that

exhibition celebrating the centenary of Johnston's

Kenneth Wells, writing in the Toronto Telegram on

birth, Arbuckle gave his opinion of the influence

23 June 1934, claimed, "Johnston is the one man

of Grip Ltd. on Johnston.

who has grasped the spirit of Thomson's message, and if it is to be carried to a richer and fuller

His picture design, as with all of the group

development it will be through his brush." What is

[of Seven], especially Thomson and J.E.H.

certainly true is that if Thomson had not been

MacDonald, was powerfully influenced by

drowned in a canoeing accident in Algonquin

the art nouveau movement, with its

Park, somewhat before the group formalized itself

sinuous lines, loops and flat patterns. That

and held its first exhibition in 1920, he would have

influence remained with him the rest of

been a member of it, and the Group of Seven

his life. However, Frank had a natural

would have been the Group of Eight.

design sense, better than some of the group — Lismer for example ...

Grip was managed at that time by Albert Dobson, who was very sympathetic to the artistic ambitions of the young men he found himself

Arbuckle owns some large panels of design

managing But Grip, itself, gave the young artists

work done by Johnston as commercial 19

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY commissions later in his life, and while the

catalogue, A. Y. Jackson, Paintings 1902-1953, that

influence of Art Nouveau is very apparent in

Johnston had been "a capable, brilliant designer

them, so is an entirely personal and creative

and commercial artist," a view Johnston himself

interpretation of its methods and ends, which lifts

echoed more modestly in a newspaper article

the work above the level of mere repetitive

about poster art which he contributed to the

journey-work and gives it vivacity and

Winnipeg Mirror in April 1925: "The writer takes it upon himself," he wrote,

independence. Of Johnston's influence on Grip Ltd., a letter

"that he is fairly competent in the subject, having,

by L. Rossell, who worked there at the same time

in New York, been with Louis Fancher, one of

as Johnston, describes "a stockily built, extremely

America's foremost poster designers, for over a

vivacious, supremely confident young fellow.

year ... [and] for nearly three years designed

Nothing could be quiet long when Frank was

posters only for Canada's largest poster

around, and he was responsible for many of the

distributor" [Rous and Mann].

lively escapades which happened at the Grip. He was just as adroit in getting himself out of a

Johnston married his childhood sweetheart,

difficult situation as his mischief-loving

Florence Jamieson, in 1910. She was the daughter

disposition got him into the scrapes."

of Scottish immigrants from Flos Township, one

When Dobson left Grip Ltd. for the larger and

of several small communities on the southern

more prosperous studios of the printers Rous and

shores of Georgian Bay, in the area around the

Mann in 1912, he took Johnston, MacDonald,

town of Midland, which were whimsically named

Lismer, Carmichael, and Varley with him and,

two hundred years ago for the pets of Elizabeth

from that point, Grip Ltd. was eclipsed both as a

Graves Simcoe, wife of the first lieutenant

commercial studio and in its influence on the

governor of Upper Canada. The marriage was a

development of the painters who were to become

long and rich one, in which Florence was a

the Group of Seven. Years later, in 1953, Dobson

constant source of unquestioning support to her

told the compiler of an Art Gallery of Toronto

husband in his professional life. Franklin

20

EARLY YEARS Arbuckle, who knew them both as friends and in-

church's teachings. Recovering nevertheless, with

laws, spoke warmly of their relationship in his

the help of a Christian Science practitioner, and

speech at the Arts and Letters Club. Florence

then with a medical doctor whom Florence had

Johnston was beautiful, calm, and capable, he

reluctantly called in, Johnston always downplayed

said, and without her steadying hand "Frank

the influence of traditional medicine and claimed

would never have remained on course ... No

that he had been saved by his faith.

matter what happened, up or down, she was the

In 1911, Johnston joined the Arts and Letters

steadying factor, never faltering, always loving."

Club in Toronto, an institution without which,

Of Johnston the busy artist as a father, he

one suspects, cultural life in Canada might never

recalled: "Frank was a wonderful husband and

have flourished at all, so central was it to the

father. Always fun, always interested in [the

world of the arts in the first decades of the

children's] doings. His children loved him

century. At the club he met not only his friends

unreservedly in return."

from Grip, but other artists and members of the

Johnston and his wife, a fifth-generation

city's fledgling cultural community, as well as

Canadian, became interested in the Christian

admirers, wealthy businessmen, and entrepreneurs

Science religion, a belief they shared with Sir

eager to support the arts.

Wylie Grier. It was Grier who is believed to have

In his speech in 1988, Arbuckle gave a

persuaded Johnston to take up that religion. The

charming and amusing insight into the less-

Johnstons and Griers frequently attended the

known Franz Johnston of this period. For several

Christian Science church on St. George Street

years, Johnston was a frequent and enthusiastic

together and, having joined, Johnston remained a

performer in the club's famous — or infamous —

faithful and devout follower all his life. He started

amateur theatricals.

each day with a prayer and bible reading, and took

"One of Frank's famous solo acts was called

his faith into account in his daily life to the point

'The Great Modidler,'" Arbuckle remembered. "In

that when, on one occasion, he was very ill, he

this almost burlesque comedy, he posed as a

refused medication because it was against his

sculptor who worked in tights. During the act he 21

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY threw great wads of clay in all directions and as he got warmer he would peel off his tights, and the ladies in the audience would hide their eyes. Of course there was another pair underneath, and this went on for six or seven [pairs of] tights. Meanwhile, a hugely grotesque lady in clay emerged. He always ended up by doing cartwheels across the stage to the exit." The painters who became the Group of Seven The Group of Seven at the Arts and Letters Club. Johnston is seated third from the right. (Courtesy of the Arts and Letters Club, Toronto)

are generally well-represented in the Arts and Letters Club's archives, except for Johnston. Among a handful of largely inconsequential papers

further his education as an artist at the

and clippings concerning him, there is a notice of

Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, studying under

an after-dinner speech he gave there in February

Philip Hale and Daniel Garber. From Philadelphia

1925, after his return from Winnipeg, when his

he moved to New York, to work at the Carleton

subject was Dynamic Symmetry, an abstruse issue

Studios, a design firm which had associations with

in art with which he concerned himself for some

the Carleton Studios in London, England. In New

time. He resigned from the Arts and Letters Club

York, he studied with Robert Henn, one of the

in June 1932 when, having moved to the shores of

founders of the derisively nicknamed "Ash Can"

Georgian Bay, he was no longer able to frequent

school of American realist painters and artists, who

the club as he had once done.

sought to liberate American painting from the stifling sentimentality of late-nineteenth-century

While he was working at "the Grip" as most called

European art. It was in New York in 1913 that

the studio, Johnston exhibited with the Ontario

Johnston saw, and was deeply impressed by, the

Society of Artists in 1910 and 1911 but, in 1912, he

Armory Show, which introduced the new modern

left Toronto for Philadelphia, where he intended to

art of Europe to North America. 22

EARLY YEARS He continued to exhibit with the OSA while

In the summer of 1915, Frank was introduced to a

he was in the United States, and returned to

leading Toronto occulist and surgeon, Dr. J. A.

Toronto in 1915, resuming his former life as a

MacCallum, a wealthy Arts and Letters Club

commercial artist and associating with his friends

member, who would be the club's president for

through his membership of the Arts and Letters

two years in the early 1920s. MacCallum had a

Club. During this time, and for some years, he

fashionable and profitable practice in the city, and

maintained a studio at the Arts and Letters Club,

created a world-famous collection of pediatric

on the top floor of the club's imposing building,

artifacts which, decades later, formed the basis of a

St. George's Hall, on Elm Street in downtown

Toronto museum of childhood. He was also one

Toronto. Johnston's studio was just across the

of the four Toronto doctors who developed the

corridor from F. H. (Frank) Brigden, the son of his

children's formula food, Pablum.

former employer, and one of the Ontario Society

Familiar with the group of young club

of Artists' most prominent members. One can

members who painted together, MacCallum had

imagine the commerce of conversation and ideas

willingly assumed the role of patron of the arts

between the two old friends and colleagues.

and was especially interested in helping to

Once he was back in Toronto, Johnston went

promote these new young painters. It was

painting at every opportunity, in various parts of

MacCallum who urged Johnston to do as some of

the city. Paul Rodrik noted that he painted with

the others from Grip Ltd. were doing and go

C. W. Jefferys in the Don River valley at York

north to paint.

Mills in north Toronto in 1915, while the

Acting upon his friend's advice, Johnston went

catalogue of his famous huge exhibition of nearly

to Bon Echo, a beautiful lake although difficult of

four hundred paintings, held at the Winnipeg Art

access, northwest of Kingston, Ontario, where he

Gallery in 1923, contains works such as On the

stayed with an old friend, Merrill Denison. While

Don, Haze on the Humber, Spring on the Humber,

he was painting at Bon Echo, Denison's mother,

and York Mills Valley, all painted in familiar

Flora MacDonald Denison, introduced him to the

Toronto-area locations.

poetry of Walt Whitman, which was to influence 23

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY him and his approach to life and art for the rest of

On the eve of the First World War, with Franz

his life. In Whitman's writings Johnston found the

Johnston at the hub of a small group of ebullient,

lines which were to frame his own energies and

independent young artists in Toronto, art in

work, and which he often quoted in connection

Canada was already beginning to change,

with his art:

although the years of struggle in Europe were to put off the full flowering of that change for four

Urge and urge and urge,

more years.

Always theprocreant urge of the world.

He repeated that painting trip to the wilderness the next year, but this time he went much further north, to the Ontario mining town of Hearst, deep in the Canadian Shield, where he was profoundly impressed and moved by the landscape. One of his most famous paintings, A Northern Night, was painted as a direct result of those inspirational visits, and finished some time later in 1918. Bought by the National Gallery, the purchase of this painting was the first formal recognition of his work. Magee Macbeth, the art critic of Saturday Night, wrote rather fulsomely that it was a painting "one cannot face unstirred. All the mystery of darkness, all the wonder of the Aurora that dims the brilliance of a thousand stars, is compassed in the small painting." 24

Two JOHNSTON THE WAR ARTIST ith the outbreak of the war in 1914,

w

Johnston

and

his

colleagues

dispersed; some to the war, others to

different parts of Canada, to fight, to work, and to pursue their own art as, when, and how they could. Of the group of friends, Jackson, Varley, and Harris went to the war, where each served with distinction; MacDonald, Lismer, and Johnston remained in Toronto (although Lismer soon took a post as vice-principal of the art school in Halifax) while Carmichael returned to Toronto from France, where he had been studying, but was then forced by necessity to return to a job in his father's carriagebuilding business in Bolton, Ontario. In 1915 Johnston, recently returned from the United States, 25

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY tried to enlist in the army but did not meet the

home front, as well as battlefield scenes, were

requirements. His contribution to the war effort

included as part of the remit. In due course, commissions were given to a

was to be different. Very early in the war the London-based,

number of Canadian painters. Jackson, Varley,

Canadian-born millionaire Sir Max Aitken, later

Fred Beatty, and James Morrice painted in Europe

to be ennobled as Lord Beaverbrook, was given

where Jackson, in particular, produced some

the task of commissioning artists to record the

works which rank with those of Paul Nash as

war. Although soldiers, sailors, and airmen came

moving records of the terrible toll the war took on

from every country in the Empire, at first Aitken

humanity and nature. Homer Watson, G. A. Reid,

gave commissions almost exclusively to British

C. W. Jefferys, Arthur Lismer, and Frank Johnston

artists, even when the subject was men from

were all commissioned to paint in Canada. More

Australia, Canada, or South Africa. However, the

than 850 paintings, drawings, and sketches were

Royal Canadian Academy, flexing its newly

produced as a result of the Canadian War

developed muscles as the voice of Canadian

Memorials project, all of them now in the

artists' interests, forced the government in Ottawa

Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.

to ensure that Canadian artists would be given

Of the group of friends, Jackson painted

some of the commissions.

some very moving pictures of life on the western

Sir Edmund Walker, director of the National

front. Lismer, in Halifax, painted naval scenes,

Gallery, and the Canadian representative on the

and only avoided being killed by the munitions

War Records Commission, agreed with the

boat explosion in Halifax harbour because he

academicians, and used his influence in London to

missed his train on that morning, although one

press the point. As a result, Aitken was obliged to

of his students was killed, which affected him

begin sharing the work more equitably. A

very deeply.

Canadian War Memorials project was instituted,

Frank Johnston, in typically independent and

and on Sir Edmund's insistence, and under his

creative style, took to the air.

direct administration, pictures of activities on the

26

JOHNSTON THE WAR ARTIST In July 1918, at the invitation of Sir Edmund, who

In July and August, Johnston went to make

had long been an admirer of his work, Johnston

preliminary sketches for larger paintings at

agreed to accept a commission to sketch the life of

Armour Heights and Leaside, two flying-

the men of the Royal Flying Corps (Canada) at

instruction airfields in parts of Toronto which

their training camps in Ontario. At this time, as the

were close enough to his York Mills home for him

war was drawing to a close, more than twenty-four

to reach easily in the spare time he had available.

thousand Canadians were serving in the flying

Showing his usual energy and rapid production,

corps on the various battle fronts, with more than

Johnston produced dozens and dozens of sketches

eight thousand Canadian officers making up

by mid-September — some from aerial

approximately twenty-five per cent of the entire

photographs, others from sketches he made

RFC officer corps. The most famous of the

during the flights he took with the young pilots —

Canadian flyers was, of course, the ace Billy Bishop,

which convinced Sir Edmund to commission him

whose niece, coincidentally, became Johnston's

as a full-time war artist for two months,

daughter-in-law. Nevertheless, it was not until 1918

retroactive to August 1,1918.

that Canadian fliers began to train in their own

However, at this point, Johnston forsook his

country, and then it was Johnston who was

War Memorials commissions and left for

commissioned to illustrate them at their work.

Algoma, in northern Ontario, to take part in the

At this time Johnston was still working as a

first of the famous boxcar painting trips with

commercial designer at Rous and Mann during

Lawren Harris, J. E. H. MacDonald, and their

the day, and was in no position to take time off

friend and patron, Dr. MacCallum, and he did

from his regular work to work on a project for

not return to Toronto until early in October.

which no advances had been offered, so

Fortunately, Sir Edmund obviously condoned

arrangements were made for him to sketch war

Johnston's absence from his wartime duties, for

subjects in his spare time — after office hours

he saw to it that Johnston was paid in full for the

during the week, and on Saturdays and Sundays

time he was away, and arranged for his contract

when necessary.

to be extended to include enough time to enable

27

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY him to paint the two large canvases which had

by small effects — the shadow of a cloud passing

been commissioned.

over the wing of the nearest airplane, the changing

On his return from Algoma, Johnston was

colour of the lake, occasioned by its changing

instructed to go for five days of painting to the

depth, the subtle but intense, infinitely graduated

School of Aerial Fighting at Beamsville, a village

colours of the fields.

on the Niagara Escarpment between the towns

In another painting from this period, Looking

of Grimsby and St. Catharines, Ontario. One of

Up into the Blue, the point of view of Beamsville is

his most respected War Memorials paintings was

reversed, as Johnston looks up at an electrically

the result.

vivid, blue sky in which small aircraft, brilliantly

Beamsville, which the artist completed in

delineated by the almost-solid density of colour in

1919, is an almost vertiginously aerial view of the

an otherwise empty sky, convey both the thrilling

Ontario lakeshore and the area around Beamsville

excitement of flight and potential aerial combat,

and Grimsby, full of glowing colour and

and the loneliness and vulnerability of the flier.

atmosphere. In it, clouds part to reveal a typically

Johnston finished his tour of duty as a war artist

lyrical southern Ontarian patchwork of fields,

at Camp Borden near Barrie at the northern end of

creeks, and lanes, and the curving shoreline of

Lake Simcoe in November where, in addition to the

Lake Ontario. Below the observer — Johnston, in

large commissioned oil painting, Camp Borden

an airplane from the gunnery school — a

(generally considered, with Beamsville, to be his

squadron of biplanes, tiny as insects, manoeuvres

masterpiece of the war), he painted two beautiful

as the pilots train. There is a poignant irony in the

small watercolours, First Snow at Camp Borden, and

serene domesticity of the lovely fields and the lake,

Winter Flying, Cedar Swamps, the latter probably

the insubstantiality of the clouds, and the purity

the first example (perhaps the only one) in

of the airplanes' flight, all of which contrasts

Canadian art of a watercolour landscape painted

darkly with what we know was the violent and

from the air in winter.

deadly objective of the pilots' exercises. Johnston

In all, Johnston created more than seventy War

has given depth and verisimilitude to the painting

Memorials works, including watercolours, 28

JOHNSTON THE WAR ARTIST drawings, and paintings in tempera and oils. Fourteen of them are on permanent display at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa and, although they are necessarily documentary by nature, these works show the same masterful command of shape and colour as the best paintings from his Algoma period, and are among the gallery's finest war paintings. Johnston exhibited Beamsville and Camp Borden — the second of the large oils commissioned by Sir Edmund — and forty-three drawings in an exhibition of war art in Ottawa. In addition to his salary as a War Memorials artist, he was paid $1,125 for the drawings, and $750 each for the oils — substantial sums of money in 1918 — all of which subsequently toured art galleries in the United States as part of a travelling exhibition of Canadian war artists' work.

29

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THREE FROM A BOXCAR IN THE ALGOMA COUNTRY

T

he painting expedition which took Johnston away from his War Memorials work in the fall of 1918 proved to be

seminal for the history of art in Canada, for something more important even than fine, vivid, and original paintings came out of the first of the famous boxcar expeditions on the Algoma Central Railway in northern Ontario, north of the Lake Superior shore above Sault Ste. Marie. In his memoir, The Story of the Group of Seven, Lawren Harris recalls the origins of the boxcar trips, which took place in the fall of four successive years, from 1918 to 1922. In 1917, he writes, he had been discharged from the army on medical grounds, and needed the best part of a year to recuperate. As part 31

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY of the process of regaining his health, he and Dr.

Johnston, Dr. MacCallum, and J. E. H. MacDonald

MacCallum explored Manitoulin Island in Lake

to join him in a painting expedition in the Algoma

Huron by train and boat, with a view to painting

country. Harris rented a boxcar from the

there. But despite its undoubted natural beauty,

Canadian Pacific Railway Company at Sault Ste.

for some reason Manitoulin did not inspire them,

Marie and arranged to have it attached to a train

and they returned to the mainland at Espanola,

going north into the Algoma Canyon. It was to be

near Sudbury, and took the train further north to

shunted, at their request, from siding to siding,

Sault Ste. Marie. From there they took what Harris

allowing them to linger for a few days to paint,

describes as "the ramshackle Algoma Central

remote from every aspect of ordinary life except

Railway" north into the Agawa River country, to

for the railway workers in rail camps and

the isolated lumber camp at Mile 129, where they

lumbermen at the nearby lumber camps.

were enchanted with what they saw.

ACR 10557, the Algoma Central Railway

"We found Algoma a rugged, wild land packed

Company's boxcar which has made its indelible

with an amazing variety of subjects," Harris

mark on Canadian art, was originally built as a

recalled. "It was a veritable paradise for the creative

crude form of accommodation for railway

adventurer in paint in the Canadian north."

workers, but it became, in effect, an apartment

As F. B. Housser describes it in A Canadian Art

and studio on wheels for the artists and their

Movement, the Algoma country is a majestic

friend MacCallum. It had been built solidly of

landscape "where to see the sky one must throw

wood on a steel frame, and was painted bright red,

his head well back. [It] is charted on a grand scale,

with thick black lettering. When renting it, Harris

slashed by ravines and canyons through which run

had the railway company fit it out with windows,

rivers, streams and springs broadening into lakes,

lamps, four bunks, a stove, a water-tank, a sink,

churning lightly over shoaly places or dropping

and cupboards. Referring to Boxcar 10557 in an

with a roll and a mist for hundreds of feet."

article in the Arts and Letters Club's magazine,

The experience had such a profound effect on

Lamps, in December 1919, J. E. H. MacDonald

Harris that, the following fall, he persuaded

wrote, "That figure became our street number on 32

FROM A BOXCAR IN THE ALGOMA COUNTRY the long way of the wilderness, our token

between 1918 and 1922, and made it, in the

association with the Company's doings."

process, one of the central icons in the romance of the Group of Seven.

Housser adds more details. "On one side of the door, directly below the window, hung a

For the first trip, MacCallum, Johnston, Harris,

moose-skull hung with sprays of evergreen and

and MacDonald left Toronto on the evening of

red berries. The present crew painted a design

September 10, 1918, and took the train to Sault

above the head on which were worked the names

Ste. Marie, where they transferred to the boxcar

of each. Beneath it were painted the words Ars

which was hitched to an outbound train. They

Longa, Vita Brevis."

were driven to Canyon, an appropriately named

Various combinations of the painters who

and very remote stopping place 113 miles north of

eventually became the Group of Seven used the

Sault Ste. Marie. There, at the most northerly point

boxcar for four successive fall visits to Algoma

of their painting expedition, deep in the astonishing grandeur of the Agawa Canyon among some of the wildest landscape they were to see, they sketched and painted along the banks of the Agawa River and in its environs for almost a week. Like Harris in the previous year, MacDonald was recovering from a complete physical breakdown at this time and, being still relatively weak, rarely strayed from the boxcar, painting what he could see from the open doorway of the car. But the others were more adventurous. Harris writes:

J. E. H. MacDonald and Franz Johnston in Algoma. (Courtesy of the Arts and Letters Club, Toronto)

We carried a one-man car inside for use up and down the tracks — two of us could manage to ride on it — and a canoe for 33

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY use on the lakes and rivers.... We worked

return from the second boxcar trip in 1919,

from early morning until dark, in sun, grey

MacDonald inadvertently illuminates the forces

weather, or rain. In the evening, by lamp

which made his picture of the Montreal Falls so

or candlelight, each showed the others his

different, and so much more compelling, than

day's work. This was a time for criticism,

Johnston's and, at the same time, clarifies what it

encouragement, and discussion, for

was that made the two trips they had taken so far

accounts of our discoveries about

so profoundly influential and memorable to them

painting, for our thoughts about the

all. "There was," he notes, "exhilaration for the

character of the country, and our

sketchers in working by rapid and fall. Every

descriptions of effects in nature which

rushing stream was a prompter of song like the

differed in each section of the country.

running of a tap to the house canary." It was that elemental exhilaration which

From Canyon, the boxcar was moved south to

informs the best canvases of each of the artists

Hubert, near the falls on the Montreal River,

who painted in Algoma and, without doubt,

which J. E. H. MacDonald made famous in his

Johnston had his share of it too, although he was,

painting of the same name. Johnston painted a

perhaps, far too down-to-earth to express the

picture of the same falls, in tempera on paper,

mystery in the emotive terms of his fellows.

after the group's second boxcar trip in 1919. The

From Hubert, the boxcar was moved south

result was a pleasant though unremarkable work

again to Batchawana, on the shores of Lake

which has always been, quite justly, overshadowed

Superior, where Johnston made sketches which

by MacDonald's more complex and dramatic

resulted in his strong and atmospheric painting

painting, which is as much an exploration of the

Batchawana Falls, now in the Winnipeg Art

artist's own personal response to the grandeur he

Gallery. After a brief halt there, the group

was experiencing as it is a record of the wonderful

returned to Sault Ste. Marie and from there they

scenery at the falls.

returned to Toronto in the first week of October,

In his Lamps article, written on the group's

with dozens and dozens of sketches on paper, 34

FROM A BOXCAR IN THE ALGOMA COUNTRY panels, and particle board from which to make

Western Front, so recently in mind, and frame a

full-scale paintings.

land which slopes away towards a partially seen lake, and the lush colours of distant hills. An inch

Johnston had been encouraged to join the

or two of pale sky provides a minimal but effective

expedition by Sir Edmund Walker, who calculated

horizon, so that the picture is all depth and space

that it would be an important influence on

— the evocation of a seemingly never-ending

Johnston's work. In that regard he was

landscape, in which there is no human scale at all,

wonderfully correct, but he could not have

but just the majesty of the wild and monumental

known, as Paul Rodrik notes, "that a new school of

north, and the elemental energy of natural forces

Canadian art would emerge as a result."

such as fire.

The paintings Johnston made from the oil

Unlike his colleagues, who sketched and

sketches he completed during the first boxcar trip

painted mostly in oils, Johnston was already

are not uniformly excellent — inconsistency was

employing tempera as his predominant medium,

to dog his painting for most of his professional

and he became very proficient with it, using its

life. Nevertheless, he did much of the best work of

qualities to create subtle patterns of colour and

his life at that time, including studies and sketches

form which are more decorative than the work of

for his incomparable, sombre, and affecting Fire-

the others, although they are still brilliant

Swept, Algoma, which he finished the following

expositions of the insubstantial interplay of

year, in 1919, and which now hangs in the

colour, light, and pattern in sky, foliage, rock, and

National Gallery.

water. Patterned Hillside is a masterly example of

Fire-Swept, Algoma is the first work by any of

Johnston's painting at that time. The equally well-

the group to deal with a panoramic and dramatic

known Drowned Land, Algoma is full of

viewpoint, rather than a closely focused and

atmosphere and the awesome grandeur of

picturesque image. In it, twisted, burnt trees in the

elemental forces, while Approaching Storm,

foreground recall something of the horror

Algoma displays the same techniques and power

captured often in paintings from the ravaged

allied to a much darker scene in which both the 35

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY electricity of the coming storm, and its effect on

oppressively heavy. The weather being uniformly

the painter, seem about to erupt from the picture.

and depressingly wet and cold, Harris would,

But unlike some of the others, Johnston

nevertheless, often peer out of the door of the

acknowledged little mysticism in relation to his

boxcar and remark, optimistically, that it seemed

work and its importance. A perfectionist, who

to be "clearing up in the west." Johnston noted

generally rated his paintings in terms of their

that it was a remark Harris used frequently and he

saleability, he was often harshly critical of his own

turned it into an ironic catchphrase with which to

work, to the point of destroying what he no longer

tease his friend. The tease was turned against

thought worthwhile. Once, at some time in the

Johnston, however, when Harris's hopeful phrase

1930s when Johnston was depressed by the state of

subsequently became a code word in the Johnston

the Canadian art market, Franklin Arbuckle came

family for Johnston's own boundless optimism

upon him in the sitting room of the house the

and enthusiasm and was used to rib him, just as

painter and his family lived in on Avenue Road.

Johnston had used it to rib Harris. Johnston took part in three of the four boxcar

Johnston, the criminal, was destroying

trips, and one gains the strong impression, from

about a hundred of his Group of Seven

the notes and journals of those who wrote about

paintings. He felt they were no longer

the experience, that they must have been

relevant to his painting at that time ...

extraordinary journeys for the artists, full of

[He] also gave away many beautiful

companionship, the vivid wonder of the scenery,

canvases and sketches, often to almost

and the exploration of ideas. In his Lamps article,

complete strangers.

MacDonald catches the serene beauty of the remote places which had moved them to such

On a lighter note, Johnston is remembered for

artistic expression:

his contribution of a much-needed element of exasperated humour to the group's boxcar life,

The hills that had been crimson and

where philosophy and earnestness could become

scarlet with maple were changed to

36

FROM A BOXCAR IN THE ALGOMA COUNTRY purplish grey. We realized one night of

immediately upon their return to Toronto in

breaking cold cloud that there was a

October 1919. Together, they exhibited 144 new

growing moon and we looked at our old

works done during the second boxcar trip, and of

star friends from the car door; the dipper

these, the phenomenally productive and energetic

lying flat along the spruce tops, and one

Johnston contributed sixty works, including the

rare light, bright Capella, dimmed in a jet

impressive Fire-Swept, Algoma, which he had

of aurora...

begun the year before.

A painter who was no more than competent

The first two exhibitions of paintings, which were

could not have failed to make art in such

exclusively the products of the boxcar painting

conditions; Johnston and MacDonald, the slower-

trips, confirmed what many already suspected,

developing Harris eventually, and Jackson from

which was that this group of painters was

the second trip onwards, were very much more

developing a truly Canadian movement in art. In

than competent, and the art they made in Algoma

Johnston's work, furthermore, vision and

made history in Canada.

execution were augmented by the artist's especial talent in using tempera, a mixture of colour

Back in Toronto from this first absorbing and

pigment and egg-white. One of the most

exciting painting adventure, and at the insistence

traditional of painting media, tempera was

of Sir Edmund Walker, the three painters

nevertheless not widely used in Johnston's time,

mounted an exhibition of their Algoma work at

when most artists painted in oils. However, it was

The Grange in May 1919, and it was a huge

the medium Johnston preferred all his life, and

success. That fall, they eagerly repeated their

the one in which he became widely acknowledged

adventurous Algoma trip, substituting A. Y.

as a master practitioner. He used it for most of his

Jackson for Dr. MacCallum, who was absent on

best paintings, especially those where light, water,

business, and when they returned once more to

and snow figured largely as components, and

the city, they held an exhibition of their new work

review after review of his exhibitions testifies to

37

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY his effectiveness in using it to capture depth of colour, pattern, and texture, and to create works which speak directly, and especially, to urban sensibilities longing to experience the grandeur and variety of nature. But as successful as the two Algoma exhibitions were, better was yet to come. The following year, in a letter to Eric Brown in March 1920, Arthur Lismer made an important announcement, which may have been the first concerning the new grouping of painters: We are having a show at the Toronto Art Gallery in May. It will be a group show — Harris,

Jackson, MacD,

Johnston, Reproduction of the catalogue of the first Group of Seven exhibition at the Art Museum of Toronto, May 1920. (Courtesy of the Arts & Letters Club, Toronto)

Carmichael, Varley and myself — The "Group of Seven" is the idea. There is to be no feeling of secession or antagonism in

was the forerunner of the Art Museum of Toronto

any way, but we hope to get a show

(which was, itself, the precursor to the Art Gallery

together that will demonstrate the "spirit"

of Ontario), from May 7 to May 20, 1920. Its

of painting in Canada ...

reception was mixed. The bulk of the visitors who saw it admired the work and the new direction

The first exhibition of the newly formed

these painters were following in bringing the

Group of Seven (Paul Rodrik believed his father

truth of Canada, as they had seen and recorded it,

was the first to use the phrase as a name for the

to the public. Others, especially some of the more

group of friends) was held at The Grange, which

traditional artists and art critics, were offended by

38

FROM A BOXCAR IN THE ALGOMA COUNTRY their presumption and by their defection from

invitation to club members, who were all, of

the European-dominated styles and tastes which

course, friends and colleagues of the artists,

had traditionally informed art in Canada.

offered the opportunity "to see the Pictures and

"Tangled gardens and jungles of iridescence" was

Heckle the Painters."

one of the more temperate criticisms of the

Whatever the critical and public response, the

paintings, while one critic, recalling Ruskin's

exhibition must have made Johnston, at least, feel

criticism of Whistler, accused them of "flinging

confident in his future as an artist, for in

pots of paint at canvases."

September of that year he obtained a building

Once again Johnston made the largest

permit from the Toronto authorities, and built a

contribution to the exhibition, the only exhibitor

home for his growing family at 135 St. Germain

whose work was executed in tempera, although

Avenue in North Toronto at what was, then, the

the major work he sold from the exhibition was

enormous cost of twenty-two thousand dollars. By

an earlier oil, Fire-Swept, Algoma, which the

all accounts it was a beautiful house. Johnston

National Gallery Commission bought for seven

designed it himself, with a studio on the ground

hundred and fifty dollars.

floor which had a soaring cathedral window

The catalogue for the exhibition, with the

where, according to his youngest son Franz

famous logo designed by Franklin Carmichael, set

Lawren Harris, "we kids teethed on tubes of paint;

out the group's credo: "The group of seven artists

we had painting coming out of our ears."

... have [sic] for several years held a like vision

However, the Johnston's tenure of the house was

concerning Art in Canada. They are all imbued

to be a short one, because the following year

with the idea that Art must grow and flower in

Johnston accepted an offer to relocate to

the land before the country will be a real home to

Winnipeg, to be principal of the city's art school,

its people."

and director of its art gallery.

The editor of the Arts and Letters Club's

But before he left to take up that new position,

monthly bulletin took a less elevated attitude in

Johnston knowingly or inadvertently set the

announcing the exhibition to his readers. His

wheels of a gathering controversy in motion.

39

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY Following the successful Group of Seven

was to figure increasingly in the artist's

exhibition, he forsook the clubbiness of the group

commercial work. Commending his "keen

he had helped to found, and mounted the first of

dramatic sense" he considers that "Mr. Johnston

his many independent exhibitions at Eaton's

leans strongly to the decorative treatment of his

Gallery on College Street in December 1920.

subject, and with it he infuses much poetry and

Writing of the paintings in that exhibition, the

imagination. It would be easy to say that some of

anonymous critic for the Mail and Empire noted

his landscapes are too idealistic, even for the

that, "The position of Frank H. Johnston A.R.C.A.

beauties of Canada, but that does not make them

among local artists is unique. Mr. Johnston is

any the less acceptable as pictures."

always classed as one of the much-discussed 'group of seven' but he has never got out of touch with the picture lovers who cannot quite get the viewpoint of his ultra-radical companions." Of the paintings themselves, the reviewer wrote that Johnston had "the secret of the living, vivid colouring of the Northland, and catches the feeling of the wide spaces.... He has a gift for finding subjects that appeal to the imagination, and he gives them an imaginative treatment." It was, he concludes, an exhibition "that gives people an opportunity to see the many sides of one of our most effective colourists." This opinion was shared by the writer of the review of the same exhibition in the Globe on December 2, 1920, who nevertheless sounds a note of caution concerning the "prettiness" which 40

FOUR JOHNSTON IN W I N N I P E G

i

n one of those strange marriages of art and industry that grew as the country itself grew, art education in Winnipeg in 1921 was in the

hands of the Winnipeg Board of Trade, which also owned and administered the city's art gallery. In the summer of 1921, the board was looking for a new principal to consolidate and expand the school of art, and to be director of its art gallery. At the suggestion of Eric Brown, the director of the National Gallery in Ottawa, Cannon Bertal Heeney, who was president of the Winnipeg Board of Trade, visited Johnston in Toronto to invite him to take the joint position. Despite the apparent bravado of building himself a new home in one of the better parts of Toronto, Johnston was, at that uncertain 41

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY at the head of the artistic life of the city as they sponsored it, they chose a man who knew that important as art could be in the life of the community, it had to pay its way. That he must have established himself quickly is suggested by an item in a city newspaper, the Winnipeg Community Builder of October 15, 1921, only a few weeks after he had taken up his new posts at the art school and gallery at the beginning of the new semester. The newspaper carried a regular feature, "In The Field Of Art" subtitled "Notes Studio portrait of Johnston, taken in Winnipeg in 1921.

from the Board of Trade Art Section." (The

(Courtesy of Franklin Arbuckle)

board's Art Section was responsible for ensuring

time of his life, in need of a stable and substantial

that, where the arts could be pressed into the

income to support his growing family. He

service of commerce, they were encouraged and

accepted the Cannon's offer with alacrity and

supported.) A pensive photograph of a handsome

moved to Winnipeg with his family that summer.

and elegantly turned-out Johnston appears below

He stayed there for four years which were

the heading, "New Art Director," and beneath the

characterized by tremendous growth, both at the

photograph there are two short articles. One

art school and in Johnston's own development as a

notes that the new art school principal has

painter, and enormous popularity for the artist

already published a new prospectus for the year,

and his work at galleries in the city.

and that "Every department is running smoothly,

In 1921, Winnipeg was still a city developing

and new enrollments are coming in daily." The

its commercial and cultural identity, and the

second records that "the new principal, who has

Board of Trade exerted a powerful influence on

just come from the east, is simply amazed at the

that development. In choosing Johnston to stand

enthusiasm for art that he finds prevailing in the 42

JOHNSTON IN WINNIPEG west" and is "very much pleased also to find so

his work and his untiring commitment to his art,

much real local talent."

while it was positively glowing about the effect he

Interestingly, one of the most talented of the

was having on the arts in the city.

students Johnston nurtured during those years

"It augurs well for the success of the art school

was Lionel LeMoine FitzGerald, already a mature

that its direction and teaching are in the hands of

man and an excellent painter, who was influenced

a man so competent and so versatile and so

stylistically by Johnston at first, but broke free to

enthusiastic," Arthur Stoughton wrote, before

create his own style in his later work. The

going on to commend "the stimulus of

Johnstons rented the same cottage on the shores

(Johnston's) personality and his artistic genius."

of the Lake of the Woods, outside the city, each

Canada, he claimed, stood on the brink of a new

summer of their stay in Winnipeg, and the

age, in which artists and their public would draw

FitzGerald family lived across the bay from them.

closer in understanding. "The presence of a man

The families visited, and these were occasions

like Mr. Johnston is one of the best means to this

during which the two artists showed each other

desirable end."

their work and exchanged ideas about their art. In

As prolific as ever, Johnston exhibited at the

1931, seven years after Johnston formally

Winnipeg Art Gallery in December that year,

confirmed his withdrawal from the Group of

heedless of the vanity his actions might have been

Seven in 1924, FitzGerald was invited to exhibit

thought to display (given that he was the director

with them, and undoubtedly he would have

of it). The same writer, Stoughton, described the

become a full member of the group had it not

exhibition as "one of the art events of the year." He

been disbanded the following year. Charles

astutely points out that the paintings, mostly done

Comfort was another Winnipeg painter who has

in the environs of the city and in the Lake of the

acknowledged his debt to Johnston.

Woods area, represented "in graphic form the

Johnston quickly established himself in the

reaction of the painter to this western country"

small world of the Winnipeg arts. On January 28,

and the strong response of "his sensitive nature ...

1922, the Winnipeg Free Press was already lionizing

to the new stimulus of our great spacious plains, 43

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY our magnificent cloud effects, our glowing sunsets

Word of Johnston's achievements eventually

and enveloping sunshine ."

filtered back to Toronto. On April 1, 1922, the

Some have said that Johnston did not paint

Toronto Star Weekly Magazine reported that,

much during his Winnipeg years, but that notion

where the Winnipeg School of Art had not been

is contradicted by this exhibition alone, which

thriving before Johnston's appointment, in his

featured many paintings with telltale titles such as

first six months as principal Johnston had had

Floating Ice, Red River, Little Indian Island, Lake of

the school painted, and all the old, worn, and

the Woods, Ice in the Assiniboine, and Off the

inferior equipment and fittings replaced with

Mainland, all speaking to the influences his

new. He brought in new boards and easels,

relocation to Winnipeg had brought into his work.

classroom furniture, even "a new cloakroom for

The strong response of a sensitive nature to

the female students."

the beauties of the landscape, to light and shade,

"Students seem to have come alive under his

to shape and colour and texture, much of which

new influence," the Star reported, noting that

Johnston honed and refined during his years in

there had been, that year, an enrollment of 220

Winnipeg, was to inform his painting for the rest

students, considerably more than the school was

of his professional life. While the outcome was

used to attracting. There was, furthermore, a

sometimes merely decorative, it was sometimes

"loyal affection of pupils for teacher, and

magnificent, too, as the critic pointed out when,

admiration for his work" Into the bargain, it was

commenting that Johnston had become a better

reported, "Mr. Johnston has behind him an

painter than he had been the year before, he

interested Bureau of Art of the Board of Trade,"

called him a "master of bright colour and

merchants who "ably support him, realizing ...

sunshine contrasted with cool luminous depths

how large a factor art is in the business world."

of shade . . . " whose "effects are strong and

Signifying its approval, and perhaps even its

vigorous, the very embodiment of the pulsating

gratitude, the Winnipeg Board of Trade had

heat of mid summer ..."

offered Johnston a total of twelve scholarships for his students "in every department." 44

JOHNSTON IN WINNIPEG Contact with Toronto was not entirely lost to

Canadian Art at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, Mary

the Johnstons, although it must, at times, have

Rodrik, the second wife of Johnston's son Paul

seemed tenuous. Despite the fact that he was more

(who changed his name from Johnston to

than two thousand miles away in Winnipeg,

Rodrik to prevent it being said he was trying to

Johnston continued to exhibit in Toronto at the

profit from his father's success) sheds interesting

OSA annual exhibition, although a letter of April

light on Johnston's tenure at the Winnipeg

27, 1923, to Robert Gagen, the secretary of the

School of Art. Speaking of things her husband

Ontario Society of Artists, indicates some of the

must have told her, for Johnston had died before

difficulties Johnston experienced in maintaining

she and Paul Rodrik were married, she noted

the connection. Writing with regard to the cost of

that he was paid four thousand five hundred

shipping paintings to Toronto for the exhibition,

dollars a year. "Judging from the amount of coal

Johnston complains that "To pay $50 [the

he burned," she commented, "I guess he needed

shipping fee] for the privilege of exhibiting is too

it [a salary that high]."

much." He notes that he had been led to believe

Mary Rodrik, who was compiling her own

that the OSA would bear half the cost of his

manuscript life of her husband and his father at

shipping fees, but that a letter from the secretary,

that time, refers elsewhere in the letter to some of

to which he was now responding, made it clear

the minutes of the art school she had been sent

that it would not now do so. "If this condition

from Winnipeg, and comments that they confirm

[the OSA not sharing the cost of shipping]

"the story about the Scotch [sic] teacher, George

prevails," he wrote, "I can no longer exhibit in the

Mackenzie, who would not conform to the

annual show."

teaching methods laid out, and told Frank, 'Mr. Johnston, I came to teach, not to learn.'"

But although he balked at paying fifty dollars to ship his paintings east to the OSA exhibition,

"Frank told the story with a very fine accent,"

Johnston was not, or at least should not have

she writes, relying on her husband's anecdotes to

been, poor in Winnipeg. In a letter written in

confirm stories of Johnston's skill as a mimic and

September 1979 to Dr. Ann Davis, Curator of

story-teller, talents he employed, as we have seen, 45

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY regularly and with great relish both at his place of

(the evidence of numerous exhibition reviews

work and at the Arts and Letters Club in Toronto

contradicts this claim, as we have seen), his four

in subsequent years.

years there were "the beginning of his life as a mature artist."

Happy as those years were, however, the Johnstons seem to have struggled financially. His

"He matured rapidly as a man," she continues,

only surviving child, his youngest daughter,

"and when he returned to Toronto, it was natural

Wenawae Stevenson, recalls that Cannon Heeney,

he would feel separated from some of his former

no doubt thinking that a well-known painter from

friends.... It must have seemed to him as if the

Toronto would want to be properly and

Group of Seven had gone as far as they were

expensively housed in Winnipeg, had secured a

willing to go, and indeed, except for Lawren

large home in one of the most desirable parts of

Harris and in a smaller way, Lismer, they did not

the city for the family to move into on their

go any further." Johnston's daughter, Frances-Anne Johnston,

relocation from Toronto. "But after having a very expensive house built

in a letter dated June 15, 1969, remembered

in Toronto," Mrs. Stevenson recalls, "and the

sketching trips with her father in the area around

move to Winnipeg, the salary from the Winnipeg

Winnipeg when she was in her teens, and that he

School of Art didn't leave enough to pay the rent.

lectured to the professors of the University of

So we moved across town to a more modest, but

Manitoba on the subject of Dynamic Symmetry,

lovely home."

an abstruse system of painting which he taught

Reflecting on the importance of Johnston's

in his art school and to which he was one of the

years in Winnipeg, Mary Rodrik notes that "as to

continent's most particular adherents. Mary

major works done at this time, I can only

Rodrik mentions the same lecture and adds that

remember [being told of] the mural done as a war

"the directors (presumably of the Winnipeg

memorial in St. Luke's Anglican Church in Fort

School of Art) were willing to give him $250 to

Rouge." Nevertheless, she concludes that although

go to New York to study it" with Jay Hambidge at

he did not do a great deal of painting in Winnipeg

Yale University. She does not say if he accepted

46

JOHNSTON IN WINNIPEG location came a change of style. Painting the prairies, the mountains, and the Canadian West and Northwest, in frequent expeditions from Winnipeg, Johnston shed the Toronto and Group of Seven influences to create a style which was more highly realistic, almost photographic in its treatment of detail, shape, and colour. But what he gained in innovation and novelty, he seems to have lost in spontaneity and sheer power, for many conclude that his paintings from this period on are wonderfully accomplished in their technique, but infinitely shallower in their ability to frame the rawness and magnificence of the landscapes he interpreted, and to inspire the awe and humility some of his colleagues' work went

Johnston and his daughter Wenawae, on vacation at Lake of the Woods, summer 1923. (Courtesy of Mrs. Wenawae Stevenson)

on to achieve. Nevertheless, he was hugely popular and successful, with many of his Winnipeg-period

their offer, though we know he continued to be a

paintings — Snagged, Life in the Northland,

proponent of Dynamic Symmetry in his art all

Northern Spires, and Winter's Beauty were the

his life.

principal ones — turning up on greetings cards and in similar commercial settings.

Escaping the city as frequently as he could,

On February 1, 1922, writing of yet another

Johnston spent the hot Winnipeg summers

exhibition of Johnston's work at the Winnipeg Art

painting in the area around Lake of the Woods, on

Gallery, under the headline "Many splendid

the Ontario-Manitoba border, and also at Lake

pictures in Johnston exhibit," the Winnipeg

Manitoba, and with this change of scenery and

Community Builder reported that "One need not 47

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY put in a dull minute in a visit to the Gallery....

contributor, who signed himself only "J.M.B.,"

Perhaps the most difficult act for the visitor to

gives us an interesting, if somewhat partisan,

grasp is that what he sees is the work of one man

appreciation of the position Johnston had carved

— a man who has not yet reached middle life.

out for himself in Winnipeg:

One might think that one year's prodigal display of such perfection would exhaust the labors of

The opening of the Johnston exhibition at

one man's life."

the gallery recently was carried through in

Elsewhere in the paper that day, there was a

a manner quite befitting so great an

report of Johnston's newest plan for his students.

occasion. [It was the tenth anniversary of

"A feature of this year, that every student will

the opening of the gallery.] And what is

appreciate, is a two-week out of doors sketching

more inspiring than that on this, the tenth

class — the extra instruction is given [by

anniversary, the walls of the gallery should

Johnston] absolutely free."

be fully occupied by the paintings of a

In 1923, Johnston had a one-man show of his

young and gifted Canadian, Frank H.

paintings at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, where he

Johnston, A.R.C.A., who came from the

exhibited an extraordinary 326 works, which

East to Winnipeg with a great purpose. The

included

and

success he has already achieved as head of

watercolours. The ten-page catalogue of the

the School of Art is already a matter of

exhibition shows the provenance of the paintings

common knowledge. Big numbers of

to have ranged from his earlier days in Toronto

visitors are being attracted to the gallery to

(York Mills Valley), and his Algoma experiences

see his work, and present indications point

("Algoma" appears in the title of more than half of

to the likelihood of many a Winnipeg

all of the works), to Manitoba and the Prairies

home being embellished by a "Johnston."

drawings,

oils,

tempera,

(On the Assiniboine, Buffalo Rushes, Big Country), while in "The Field of Art," his Board of Trade Art

In a review of the show in the Free Press,

Section column for January 15, 1923, the

Arthur Stoughton wrote that: 48

Fire-Swept Algoma, 1920. Oil on canvas, 127.5 x 167.5 cm National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Drowned Land, Algoma, 1918. Tempera on board, 45.9 x 54.8 cm McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Gift of Mr. R.A. Laidlaw, 1966.15.1

Batchawana Falls, 1918. Tempera on illustration board, 98.9 x 74.4 cm The Winnipeg Art Gallery

Looking Up into the Blue, 1918. Egg tempera, 57.5 x 72.1 cm Canadian War Museum, Ottawa

Beamsviile, 1919. Oil and charcoal, 183.4 x 137.5 cm Canadian War Museum, Ottawa

The Fire Ranger, c.1920. Oil on canvas 123.0 x 153.2 cm National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

The Gleam, Northern Quebec, c. 1935. Oil on panel, 30.5 x 39 cm Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Gift from the Fund of the T. Eaton Co. Ltd., for Canadian Works of Art, 1952

In the second half of his life, Franz Johnston became one of the most sought-after Canadian lyrical painters. Johnston's skill in rendering the quality of light on snow was thought to be unsurpassed. Unnamed and undated. Courtesy of Wenawae Stevenson Photo: Bruce Hogg

Unnamed and undated, but probably from the later 1930s or early 40s, and almost certainly painted in the bush around Jack McCurdy's wilderness camp, which was beside Lake Nipigon. Courtesy of Wenawae Stevenson Photo: Bruce Hogg

Unnamed and undated, but certainly painted during Franz Johnston's trip to Radium Mine in the 1930s. It is likely a scene taken from beyond the community of Radium Mine, at one of the small lake communities where the artist went to meet with and work among the Inuit. Courtesy of Wenawae Stevenson Photo: Bruce Hogg

Unnamed and undated, but a typical woodland scene of the kind Franz Johnston painted in the last decade of his life around Midland. Courtesy of Wenawae Stevenson Photo: Bruce Hogg

Brightly coloured and stylized examples of the kind of commercial work Franz Johnston continued to accept commissions for throughout the 1930s and early 1940s. Courtesy of Wenawae Stevenson Photo: Bruce Hogg

Unnamed and undated, but probably painted in the area around the Balm Beach art school on the southern shore of Georgian Bay in the late 1920s. Courtesy of Wenawae Stevenson Photo: Bruce Hogg

Unnamed and undated, but certainly a painting or sketch for a painting from one of the Algoma voyages of 1918 or 1919. See how the art deco motifs he relied on at Grip influence this little scene. Courtesy of Wenawae Stevenson Photo: Bruce Hogg

An undated portrait of Wenawae, aged about twelve years. Courtesy of Wenawae Stevenson Photo: Bruce Hogg

Unnamed and undated, but certainly another sketch done during one of the Algoma voyages of 1918 or 1919. Courtesy of Wenawae Stevenson Photo: Bruce Hogg

JOHNSTON IN WINNIPEG The greater number of pictures are done in

wonders — given the habitually patronizing

tempera, although this show presents

attitude of the British cultural elite towards work

evidence of the versatility of this man. He

from outside the Mother Country, and the frankly

seems to have tried every medium and

colonial attitudes of the British of that time — how

every colour with good results.... there are

informed such an encomium could have been.

some dozen pastels which have three-fold interest — first, from their good quality,

In the spring of 1924, Johnston began to

second, because they present the artist's first

contribute a regular column — "Talks on Art" —

impressions of Winnipeg, and third, as

to the Winnipeg Mirror, in which he discussed

being his first essays in this medium.

aspects of aesthetics, and the importance of art, with considerable philosophical and critical

During his long summer vacation in 1924,

acumen, ranging equally over advertising and

Johnston made a sketching and painting trip to the

commercial art as well as fine art. In one

Rockies, Lake Louise, and Jasper, travelling on to

interesting column, on April 5, 1924, he arrived at

paint and sketch on the west coast. Some of the

a conclusion which provided an axiom for his

pictures from that trip were shown in an exhibition

own work, when he said that "Art is in the humble

of sixty pictures at the Robert Simpson and

task as well as in high endeavour." He lived his life

Company Gallery in Toronto in December 1924. It

as an artist validating that idea.

was in the same year, at an exhibition which

October 1924 was a month of change for

featured the new Canadian art in Wembley,

Johnston. In Victoria, British Columbia, he was

England, that the prominent British art critic, Sir

showing paintings at an exhibition where the art

Michael Sadleir saw and was impressed by

critic of the Colonist commented that:

Johnston's A Northern Night. Face to face with the artist in Winnipeg sometime later, Sadleir told

Johnston, while impressionistic, is happily

Johnston that his painting was "the most truly

lacking in the grosser faults of many of this

Canadian picture [he] had ever seen" although one

class of painters. He has a keen sense of 49

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY form and proportion and a cheerful and

In both Winnipeg and Toronto, Johnston was

healthy atmosphere pervades his work. He

clearly a good teacher and an excellent

approaches his subject with a rugged

administrator. The Winnipeg Community Builder

wholesomeness which is very stimulating.

noted in its issue of February 1, 1922, that "It is a

There is nothing brooding in any of these

little short of wonderful how in a large classroom

vivid pictures, but a fine spaciousness and

Mr. Johnston can circulate himself, not one

a feeling of potential motion.

[student] overlooked, but all helped — helped as much by his infectious enthusiasm as by his gift of teaching."

But elsewhere it was different. In the foothills of the looming economic recession, which would

Sixty-six years later, Franklin Arbuckle echoed

devastate the whole of the western world, the

those findings in his talk at the Arts and Letters

government

already

Club: "His enthusiasm was infectious," he recalled.

experiencing severe financial stresses. Johnston

"He obviously knew what he was talking about,

approached the government for greater funding

and he gave an impression of speed and dynamic

for the art school but, despite his lobbying, the

energy which eventually instilled in us the idea

government refused to vote extra financial

that time was precious and fleeting.

of

Manitoba

was

assistance to provide for the expansion of the art

"Along with tough work habits, he also had a

school, and hence his dreams for art education in

splendid sense of wit and humour which he used

the province. Provoked and disappointed,

to advantage when mingling with the students on

Johnston resigned his position at both the school

reasonably even terms."

and the gallery. He returned to Toronto in the fall

Wenawae Stevenson recalls his popularity with

of that year, in time to secure a teaching position

the staff and students at the art school in

at the Ontario College of Art where, as director

Winnipeg, and later in Toronto, and his vivacity

of the foundation year courses, he worked with

and enthusiasm. "He loved a party. Every year at

his old friend J. E. H. MacDonald as principal

Hallowe'en he'd give a party to which everyone

until 1927.

was invited, and they were always such fun." 50

JOHNSTON IN WINNIPEG Speaking of Johnston's legendary kindness, Franklin Arbuckle recalled that the bachelor Tom Thomson would frequently be invited to dine with the family at their home in York Mills, and that the Johnston family would often invite impecunious and out-of-town students to their home, for "fun and food." As well, Johnston was an easy mark for students who needed to borrow small amounts of money, Arbuckle recalled. "Including myself." In her typescript biography of her husband's father, Mary Rodrik records that: He found means to encourage free expression in his students. He invited them to his studio on Saturday mornings. They brought their work to show him, they came to work, they came to talk. They observed him working. Their critical young eyes watched Frank at the easel, so absorbed he at times forgot they were there. At other times he ran a flow of comments as he worked; they listened and learned.

51

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FIVE THE SPLIT WITH THE GROUP OF SEVEN ohnston's return from Winnipeg in 1924

j

resurrected in the Toronto press the controversy which had begun to develop after

he left the Group of Seven in 1920 to exhibit by

himself, so that on his return to Toronto he felt obliged to give his version of the events to the press. It is difficult to imagine — in these days, when the most outrageous behaviour and difficult work of contemporary artists raises scarcely a yawn — that in 1924, Johnston's withdrawal from the Group of Seven caused a firestorm of criticism and counter-criticism, though it must be said that most of the volleys, from both sides, were fired by supporters in each camp, rather than by the artists themselves. Indeed, although Johnston never 53

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY exhibited with his former friends and colleagues

group perfunctorily in his memoir, A Painter's

again, he remained friendly with several of them,

Country, putting it all down to economics:

including Lismer and MacDonald, both of whom he retained as advisors at the private art school he

While the bad publicity received did not

operated in rural Ontario in the 1930s.

bother us, it did have an immediate

The cause of the rift is not difficult to explain,

consequence: Frank Johnston resigned

lying as it did in Johnston's increasing desire to

from the group. From the economic

work independently from, and in a less stridently

standpoint he had difficulty earning a

controversial manner than, his original group of

living from his painting. People were

colleagues. Like them, he wished to paint the

afraid to buy pictures that were the subject

Canadian landscape, but he wished to paint it on

of ridicule.

his own terms, according to his own perceptions and in his own, more traditional way. As to the

But how could Johnston's leaving the group

origins of the rift, if such it was, David Shaw, who

have been based on economics when, at the same

married Johnston's granddaughter, recalls her

exhibition, Johnston sold Fire-Swept, Algoma for

telling him that Mrs. Johnston had attended the

seven hundred and fifty dollars, as well as a

first Group of Seven exhibition in 1920, where

number of smaller works? Furthermore, his

some people were saying that "nobody could tell

Eaton's Gallery exhibition later in the year was a

the painters [work] apart." Her independent

tremendous financial success and made him the

husband had not been pleased. "I don't want to

darling of the critics for his "prodigious fancy,"

exhibit with a group where nobody can tell if a

"wonderful eye," and an "imagination ... not often

painting is mine or Jackson's," he had told his wife.

possessed by metaphysical ideas."

A. Y. Jackson, in particular, is often considered

In his speech to the Arts and Letters Club in

to be the member of the group who was most

November 1988, Franklin Arbuckle considered the

offended by Johnston's defection, and it is true

whole contretemps to have been hugely inflated,

that he dismisses Johnston's contribution to the

and its importance completely subverted by what 54

THE SPLIT WITH THE GROUP OF SEVEN he remembered as the two men's continued

sketching together in the Laurentians. Alex

friendly association with each other. To illustrate

still laughed about it, saying "never trust a

his contention, Arbuckle told the story of

newspaper man."

Johnston's impishly persuading Kenneth Wells, a young art critic at the Globe and Mail, to let him

Johnston himself recalled that, when he

write a part of his weekly art column, which in the

withdrew from the group, Sir Edmund Walker,

upcoming issue was to be a review of a show of

who was also the founder of the Art Gallery of

Jackson's work. With Wells' concurrence, Johnston

Ontario, wrote to congratulate him, though others

used the opportunity jovially to ridicule Jackson's

treated him as a deserter from the cause. Some

"wavy fields and woolly colour."

glimpse of official Toronto's attitude towards the

"Frank considered this a great joke!" Arbuckle

split may nevertheless be gleaned from the

continued, but Wells, with the good journalist's

headline which appeared in the Toronto Star

nose for a controversy, immediately told Jackson

Weekly: "Canadian artist deserts the extremist

what had happened and invited Jackson to write a

Group of Seven," it trumpeted. "The group of

reply. Jackson wrote a letter to the paper "ripping

seven is now only six." To stem the tide of criticism and speculation,

Frank right and left."

which Johnston felt was confused and irrational, But I happened to be present [when

he gave a clarifying interview to the Toronto Star

Jackson visited Johnston some time later at

Weekly which appeared on October 11, 1924. He

his home on Georgian Bay] and expected

had recently returned from Winnipeg, he

some sort of fireworks. However, to my

explained, and since then had been "like an

surprise they spent the whole afternoon

innocent bystander involved in a quarrel."

laughing and gossiping. Those old pros were delighted with any kind of publicity. I

To state that I had left the Group of Seven

mentioned the incident to Alex [A. Y.

gives an entirely erroneous idea of rupture

Jackson] years later, when we were

and repudiation. All these painters and

55

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY many other Toronto artists are my friends.

into that very blunder of conventionalism against

I admire their talents and consider that

which their first work was a protest."

they have contributed valuable ideas to

More interesting, in some ways, than his

Canadian art. I was never a member of the

justification of his actions in leaving the group,

Group of Seven in the sense of taking a

was Johnston's thoughtful analysis of what had

formal oath of allegiance to an art

brought the Group of Seven painters together in

brotherhood, or subscribing to rigid

the first place, and hence, implicitly, what had

doctrines. They were my friends. I shared

caused him to break with them. Likening their

their enthusiasm for new ideas and new

initiative to the work of the late-19th-century

methods. I used to exhibit with them,

Barbizon school of French painters, he explained

years ago when they first decided to make

that it was:

a united front against criticism. A movement back to nature and out into He had not withdrawn, he continued, because

the open air ... It took us out into the

of any disagreement, but because he felt it was

open air to look at Canadian landscape as

more advantageous to him to exhibit alone. "I had

distinct from European landscape. It

nothing to repent or reject," he went on. "I just

necessarily meant that each was free to

went my own way in exhibitions."

look at the landscape which attracted

These protestations, however, are somewhat at

him....When I painted A Northern Night

odds with a statement which was quoted, in a

ten years ago, I was looking at somewhat

review of his paintings at the annual OSA

the same landscape which members of the

exhibition at The Grange, in the Toronto Telegram

Group of Seven were looking at. Since then

of February 4, 1928. The reviewer, referring to

I have roamed about looking for my own

Johnston's resignation from the Group of Seven,

particular slant and impressions, for all we

reminds the reader that Johnston claimed to have

can do is paint nature as we feel it and in

left because he felt "that the group were falling

such a way as to make others share our

56

THE SPLIT WITH THE GROUP OF SEVEN feeling. It is the individual expression which makes art interesting. People profess to find in the Group of Seven a group manner. For my part, I found them all intensely individual. However, in an interview with the Toronto Star four years later, in February 1928, Johnston's view seems to have shifted somewhat from the defensiveness of his 1924 position. Accepting the writer's designation of him, vis a vis the Group of Seven, as one of "an insurgent

among

insurgents," Johnston felt confident enough by then to distinguish between his work and theirs, in terms which emphasized his independence of thought and style. "Rather than summarize," he noted. "I prefer to search."

57

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Six SNOW AND LIGHT: PAINTING THE NORTHLAND aving made the break with his former

H

colleagues, Johnston pursued his career with growing success. He held regular

exhibitions at Toronto galleries such as the Eaton's Gallery, Robert Simpson's, and the Roberts Gallery, although Franklin Arbuckle, recalling Johnston's financial condition at that time, noted that "It was all or nothing with Frank. He bought and sold houses. Sometimes he'd be running two cars; other times he might not have the price of a streetcar ticket." G. Blair Laing supports this recollection in his memoir, commenting that "although Johnston [believed] in the good life for himself and his family, financial and tax problems plagued him to the end of his days." 59

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY It was during this time, according to

made batiks, wall-hangings, and lampshades, and

Arbuckle, that the Johnstons rented the Thornhill

turned his hand to anything vaguely artistic that

home of J. E. H. MacDonald, behind which stood

might sell.

the "tangled garden," which was the subject of

"He could never sit still and do nothing,"

MacDonald's famous painting of the same name,

recalled his surviving daughter, Wenawae

which the conservative Saturday Night critic,

Stevenson. "When we lived at the MacDonalds'

Hector Charlesworth, had savaged in an

house in Thornhill, he even painted the rug in his

exhibition review in 1916.

studio. And while we had the gift store, in the

"Frank and Florence thought they were going

evening, even when he was sitting with the family,

to buy the house from Jim [MacDonald],"

he would be painting a pot or a vase, or a little

Arbuckle recalled, "so they painted it from top to

vignette, or framing a picture for the store. He was

toe and did some other work on it. They even

never idle for a moment."

grubbed out the famous — or I should say,

Her father was very much ahead of his times

infamous — tangled garden. Then when Jim saw

as a parent as well, she believes. He treated all of

what a nice job they'd made of it, he decided that

his children as his equals, never speaking down to

he wouldn't sell the house to them after all. I think

them and never suggesting that because they were

Frank was quite exasperated by that!"

children there were things they could not be allowed to try.

Returning to Toronto, Johnston took his family to a house in York Mills, and for a while, to help support the family, he and Florence ran a gift

He was always bringing us home things he

store, the Treasure Chest, on Yonge Street at

thought would entertain or amuse us, and

Castlefield Avenue. Johnston framed pictures

he'd play the kind of silly tricks that

there and kept a variety of what used to be called

children love — pretending a bowl of

"notions" for his clients. He bought plain ceramic

spaghetti was a bowl of worms, and

pots and bowls for the store and decorated them

making us dip our hands into it, blindfold,

himself in bright Art Deco colours and patterns,

for example. We loved it! 60

SNOW AND LIGHT: PAINTING THE NORTHLAND He absolutely loved the movies,

paintings done at different periods of his life. One

sometimes went two or three times in

of Johnston's New York friends was a

a week, and he often used to take us

numerologist who pursued the occult significance

with him.

of numbers. In 1926, he informed Johnston that he had counted the letters of Johnston's name and

Johnston encouraged all of the children to

had found the number inimical to further success.

paint and liked them to join him in his studio. He

Immediately, Johnston decided to change his

would help them to make batiks, or pottery, or

name. He took elements of Frank and Hans, his

anything else creative that they decided they

two given names, and rendered them as Franz,

would like to attempt, and even when he was

supposedly to create more harmony in numerical

painting himself, he would be offering them

terms and, coincidentally, the name of a small

advice on whatever they were doing, "though he

community which lay to the east of the White

never interfered or imposed his ideas on us,"

River in northern Ontario, an unexpected factor

Stevenson recalls. "He was very generous towards

which gave his new name resonances entirely in

us intellectually, too. Once, when I was about

keeping with his passion for the north country.

sixteen, we were driving somewhere in the car and

From that time, Franz Johnston became the name

he was telling me about a particular problem he

with which he signed the greater part of his work,

had been having with one of his paintings. 'I wish

although there are also a number of his paintings

I'd discussed it with you,' he said. C I could have

in various collections which are signed with his

used your advice.' I don't think many fathers, then

original name, superimposed on which, one can

or now, would ask advice from their sixteen-year-

easily see, he has subsequently applied his new

old child."

name, sometimes even crudely, in fountain pen. In his talk to the Arts and Letters Club,

Johnston's unique philosophical values, which led

Franklin Arbuckle suggested that, as well as

him, for example, to the Church of Christian

invoking good fortune, Johnston felt that the

Science, also influenced his name, as it appears on

change also marked his clear and unequivocal 61

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY separation from the Group of Seven. At all events,

exhibit, and sell in prodigious quantities as he

with his usual enthusiasm, Johnston took the

began to embed himself in Toronto's cultural life

comprehensive view and extended the changes to

once more.

his children too, all of whose names were altered

In 1927, following a lucrative commission to

to conform with his new-found numerological

paint nine murals for the auditorium of Pickering

beliefs, although Florence seems to have resisted a

College in Newmarket, north of Toronto,

change, and continued to be just Florence.

Johnston was able to make a painting trip to Senneterre in northern Quebec, where he

After his return from Winnipeg, with a family to

concentrated on paintings which were studies of

bring up, and not yet sufficiently well established

the effects of various qualities of snow and light

to live from his painting alone, Johnston

and, of course, more painting trips to his beloved

augmented his teaching salary and income from

northern Ontario.

his paintings with a range of commercial art

The search for the elusive beauty of light

work. Between 1926 and 1929 he illustrated a

effects was a field in which the artist had already

number of books, including Canadian Folk Songs

established something of a reputation. W. G.

Old and New, edited by J. Murray Gibson (J. M.

Colgate, in a review in the magazine Bridle and

Dent 1927), Friendly Acres by Peter McArthur

Golfer, commented that "Essentially Mr. Johnston

(Musson Book Co. 1927), The Beauport Road by J.

is a painter of light and more particularly of that

E. LeRossignol (McClelland and Stewart 1928),

clear, warm, mellow light that emanates from skies

The Flying Canoe by the same author (1929), and

almost cloudless as on a Summer's day, or white

The Wayside Cross by Mary F. Waagen (Musson

hazy as in Autumn."

Book Co. 1929), although his book illustration

Johnston exhibited several paintings from his

generally represents Johnston at his most trivial

northern trips in an exhibition of work by

and inconsistent. However, in his more

members of the Ontario Society of Artists at the

substantial work, he could still turn his hand to

Art Gallery of Toronto in December that year. In

excellent landscapes, and he continued to paint,

its review of the show, the Toronto Telegram for

62

SNOW AND LIGHT: PAINTING THE NORTHLAND December 17, 1927, recounts an interesting story

Perhaps the thrill of danger and the isolation

about Johnston which illuminates an aspect of

were an integral and necessary part of Johnston's

painting in the wilderness which the paintings

heady experience of painting in the northland;

themselves usually do not capture. Referring to

numerous stories circulated in the press and

the painting Birch Grill, Lake of the Woods, the

among Toronto's artistic community of his being

critic, paraphrasing a conversation with Johnston

lost in snow, or in impenetrable bush, or being

at the gallery, describes what happened to

snowed in with diminishing supplies. But

Johnston when he painted the picture:

whatever the case, he continued to study the nature of snow and light in painting trips in

Leaving camp on a fine day the artist, with

northern Quebec, and in the country around Lake

his two daughters and a companion,

Nipigon, throughout the 1930s, through which he

rowed his small boat to a distant island

developed his very special facility for painting the

where he went inland and painted happily

effect of light and shadow on snow, a theme which

for a few hours. Upon returning to the

informs some of his most popular and enduring

boat he discovered a heavy sea was

works from that period.

running and darkness was approaching. In his Marxist analysis of Canadian art, The Johnston told the Telegram writer that it had taken

History of Painting In Canada — Towards a

five attempts to launch the boat:

People's Art, Barry Lord writes scathingly of what he sees as Johnston's "selling out" to commercial

Rowing in the heavy rolling sea, we were

interests after his break with the group. There may

rapidly becoming exhausted. Just when we

be some truth in Lord's criticism, for Johnston

were about to give up, a speed launch that

consciously courted a bourgeois art-buying public

was out looking for us came alongside, and

with the brilliantly refined and gem-like

probably saved our lives.

landscapes that he was painting after his return from the prairies. With their emotive, often fey

63

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY and romantic titles — c direct from a heart surcharged with poetic feeling," as the poet J. E. Middleton wrote about Johnston's work in 1935, and their accommodating size and shape, which another critic noted made them suitable for "the average family home," it was largely a body of work aimed at a specific market, with the specific view of making sales. To that extent Johnston was the most financially successful painter of his generation. Indeed, he was so

Summer students at Tondakea Lodge in the early 1930s. Wenawae Stevenson is at front second from right; her sister, Frances-Anne, is at bottom, left; Franklin (Archie) Arbuckle, who later married Frances-Anne, stands third left at back; the artist J. W. Beatty, who taught at Tondakea, sits centre, bottom; Winchell Smith, another artist who taught at Tondakea, stands top right, beside the pole. (Courtesy of Mrs. Wenawae Stevenson)

successful that Simpson's, in whose gallery he exhibited frequently, created and

of paintings each year for the gallery in return for

stocked an entire Franz Johnston Room, with the

a regular weekly payment of eighty-five dollars.

express purpose of giving his highly saleable

Nevertheless in 1930, with Canada in the

work a setting of its own. It was a Toronto event

throes of the worst depression the world had ever

which was trumpeted in Canadian Homes and

seen, and still not sufficiently established to live

Gardens in March 1931 with the headline,

well and raise his family on his income as an

"Announcing the new Franz Johnston Room in

artist, Johnston was forced to move out of Toronto

the Fine Arts Gallery."

to a cheaper location. He went north and settled

Two years later, in a development which was

in the area from which his wife's family had come

highly unusual for any gallery or artist at that

to Toronto so many years before.

time, Simpson's and Johnston signed a contract in

Balm Beach, at that time a small and scattered

which Johnston agreed to produce a given number

farming and resort village near Midland on the

64

SNOW AND LIGHT: PAINTING THE NORTHLAND shores of Georgian Bay, was an area with a

Painting compulsively for most of the year —

seemingly magnetic attraction to Johnston and to

to satisfy the steady demand for his paintings, and

his artist friends and associates, for almost all the

because it was the only way he could live his life —

members of the Group of Seven painted there at

Johnston nevertheless devoted his summers to

one time or another. In Balm Beach, at the

teaching art to students, usually school teachers on

junction of Second Street and Main Road,

their long summer vacation. The students camped

Johnston bought a log building which belonged to

in tents on the grounds of Skitawaboo. Wenawae

Florence's relatives and had been in their family

Stevenson remembers his enthusiastic teaching, as

for many years.

well as bathing parties on the beach, and the long

Despite its simple log construction, it was a

evenings of fun and entertainment which seemed

quite spacious home, already one of the oldest

to follow naturally after the rigours of the day's

properties in the village. The home was overhung

teaching and learning, with Florence accompanying

with two tall trees on which Wilma Harmer (who,

her husband on the piano while he sang in his

as a child, was a village neighbour at that time)

pleasant tenor voice and conducted the revelries.

recalls that the children rigged a perilously

At some point Johnston bought fifty acres of

dangerous rope swing. It was very much a self-

land set back from the village and the beach, but

contained family, she remembers, although she

overlooking Georgian Bay. In typical hands-on

and other neighbourhood children brought

fashion, he took the log cottage apart and moved

vegetable peelings and other kitchen scraps to the

it from the village to his plot of land, where he

goat the Johnston family kept for its milk, and as a

and his son Paul rebuilt it themselves, with some

teenager she often danced with the Johnstons'

professional help from local construction

youngest daughter at the dance hall at Balm

workers, adding a big studio building and some

Beach. The family summered at Balm Beach for a

cabins to accommodate his students who paid,

number of years, and Johnston opened his own

an advertisement in the Toronto Daily Star of

private school of art at the cottage, which he

May 13, 1931, makes clear, "Board and tuition,

named Skitawaboo.

$15 per week." 65

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY In 1933 Johnston completed one of his most famous paintings — of a Mountie finally tracking down a criminal in a bleak, northern wilderness scene — whose genesis seems to have been in his experiences during his years in Winnipeg. Beyond the Law shows Johnston at the height of his powers, in a work which is tinged with the Johnston and his son Paul (sitting on table) at Tondakea Lodge, late 1920s. (Courtesy of Mrs. Wenawae Stevenson)

mysticism that had been increasingly entering his work since the beginning of the 1930s, coupled

He called his new accommodations Tondakea

with strong elements of the Canadian nationalism

Lodge, which in Ojibway means "where the

which was then coming slowly into vogue. It is a

world vanishes."

large oil, a detailed, resonant, narrative painting in

The school served two useful purposes for

which an officer of the Mounted Police finally

Johnston. At the height of the depression, when

catches up with the criminal he has been

selling art was difficult even for a painter like

following, only to find him dead, a victim of the

Johnston, who was generally regarded as the best-

stark but majestic snows.

selling artist of his generation, it provided him

Reviewing the picture in December 1933, the

with an important supplement to his income from

unnamed critic of the Toronto Telegram's "Record

painting. More importantly, however, it gave him

Room" column rhapsodizes that, although much

permanent access to the landscape which inspired

has been sung and written about "those red

him to paint. Indeed, such was Johnston's passion

coated men of the Mounted" who take the law

for those landscapes that, according to Arbuckle,

into the wilderness, "it has been left to Franz

whenever he left Toronto for his home on

Johnston to paint all the stark, ruthless might of

Georgian Bay, he always spoke of "going north," as

the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the land

if Balm Beach were close to the Arctic Circle.

they patrol..." Of the painting itself, the writer approvingly 66

SNOW AND LIGHT: PAINTING THE NORTHLAND describes "the Barren land, under its mantle of

painted, but the years passed and it never

snow" stretching to the distant horizon, beneath

was. Still the thing lived in my mind. It

"the soul-disturbing wonders of the Northern

grew and grew and grew, and finally just

Lights." The snow, in which the dead fugitive lies

sort of came to a head and had to be done,

"arms flung out in the attitude of the crucified," is

and there you are. It is not an illustration

a "guilt-masking whiteness" in which the dead

of one story. It's the essence of a dozen

man is "beyond the law, indeed." But Nature is at

stories, a sort of composite story of the

hand to offer redemption, for through the grace of

Mounted of the North. I am satisfied.

the snow, "all is washed clean here, and forgiven." In conversation with the reviewer at the

Nevertheless, although it is as sentimental a

exhibition Johnston, describing the painting's

picture as anything the artist ever painted, it is

provenance, let fall some interesting light on the

rich in drama and thoroughly unified by

details of his own life as a painter, and the kind of

Johnston's excellent technique, so that E. Wylie

forces which informed his painting:

Grier, president of the Royal Academy, pronounced it "one of the most significant

The whole thing began as the result of a

pictures yet done in Canada illustrating the

painting vacation in the Rocky Mountains

Canadian North." Johnston, he said, outdoes

years ago. At the village or town of Jasper, I

himself every once in a while, "and his work

met an ex-sergeant of the Mounted, a

becomes finer and better."

Sergeant Thome, who is the model for the

The painting was subsequently bought by

Mountie in the picture. We became friends

Simpson's for ten thousand dollars and presented

and spent a lot of time together, yarning,

to the RCMP at their headquarters in Regina. In

lunching and walking. He told me so

1974 the RCMP permitted the Toronto novelist

much about the work of the Mounted that

Edward Lawrence Zeally to use the painting as the

I began to feel sort of inspired. I felt that

jacket illustration of a novel he had written — a

the thing should be painted, had to be

thriller about the pursuit of a felon in the

67

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY wilderness of the Northwest Territories and the

Far from cutting himself off from his former

Yukon — which carried the same title as

colleagues and friends in Toronto after his break

Johnston's painting but, unlike the painting, the

with the Group of Seven, Johnston enjoyed an

novel was not particularly successful.

excellent relationship with Arthur Lismer and

Johnston was becoming famous. In December

J. E. H. MacDonald, as well as with G. A. Reid and

1937, the children of Classroom 12 at Regal Road

the faculty at the Ontario College of Art. Indeed,

School in Toronto were putting together a scrap

he actually co-opted Wylie Grier and J. E. H.

book, now in the Archives of Ontario in Toronto,

MacDonald as members of his school's advisory

which they called Contributors to Canadian

council, while Lawren Harris stood as godfather,

Progress. They wrote to Johnston at Tondakea

and lent his name, to Johnston's youngest son,

Lodge, asking him for some information about

Franz Lawren Johnston.

himself to include in their project. Pleased to be

Arbuckle, who told his Arts and Letters Club

included with such luminaries as Lady

audience that "Frank admired MacDonald more

Tweedsmuir, the poets E. J. Pratt and A. M.

than any other Canadian artist and was fiercely

Stephen, Grey Owl, and Nellie McClung, Johnston

loyal to him," also taught at Tondakea for two

wrote back on headed notepaper which bore the

summers "to pay for board and keep for [my]

— at that time innocent — swastika device artists

family. And I had to work for it, too. He didn't cut

sometimes used as a motif to represent harmony.

me any slack." Other artists who taught at Tondakea

Enclosed with the letter he sent them a parcel of

included J. W. Beatty and Winchell Smith.

brochures about himself and his work which they pasted into their scrapbook, and the promise of a

During the 1930s, Johnston made regular trips to

reproduction of the latest of his paintings being

the Canadian North, where he was determined to

commercially reproduced, or failing that, a

paint a purer and purer vision of Canada's

reproduction "of my most famous painting,

elemental grandeur. Many of those trips were to

Beyond the Law!'

the fishing camp of a friend, Jack McCurdy, on Onaman Lake in the country around Lake

68

SNOW AND LIGHT: PAINTING THE NORTHLAND lasted until the artist's death in 1949. In a newspaper interview in the late 1950s, McCurdy told of his first sight of Johnston, recalling that the artist had stepped off the local train at Tashota, 150 miles north of the Lake Superior railhead, "in an ordinary suit, light topcoat and Oxfords, with the mercury between 40 and 50 below zero." Johnston returned to McCurdy's fishing camp year after year to paint, and to participate in the rich quality of the life of the fishermen of the northern lakes. He established a quick and easy friendship with the fishermen which bridged the difference in their lives, although most found his occupation — and his philosophical acceptance of

Johnston in the 1930s, probably at Jack McCurdy's camp in the Lake Nipigon area. (Courtesy Mrs. Wenawae Stevenson)

frost-bitten fingers and ears, the concomitant of

Nipigon. He painted there, on and off, for the rest

painting out-of-doors in those sub-zero

of his life, sometimes in the company of his son

temperatures — more than a little strange, not to

Paul, especially in his last years.

say eccentric. Citing a typical incident from those

Johnston had first met McCurdy in the early

years, McCurdy recalled Johnston setting up his

1930s, when the artist went to the Lake Nipigon

easel on a wickedly cold winter night to paint the

territory to fulfill a commission from a wealthy

northern lights. Outdoor sketching being quite out

patron to paint a rare, all-white team of huskies

of the question, McCurdy remembers Johnston's

which was to be found there. To facilitate the

modus operandi with amusement: he would rush

commission, a Canadian National Railways public

outside to look at the spectacle for a few moments,

relations official introduced Johnston and

and then rush back inside the cabin to paint.

McCurdy, whose unexpected and deep friendship

Working this way throughout the evening until 69

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY two o'clock the following morning, Johnston

the Toronto Star of December 9, 1936, of an

responded to McCurdy's inquiry as to whether he

exhibition at the J. Merritt Malloney Gallery on

was "having fun" with the characteristic comment,

Grenville Street in Toronto, August Bridle

"... those colours are worth a lot of money to me."

commented on Johnston's "joyful scenes" and "a

However, McCurdy contradicted the popular

panorama of northland scenes in even more than

impression of Johnston being as astute at the

his usual ecstasy of luminous heroic painting." It

business of art as he was at what would make a

was, Bridle wrote, work of "marvelous clarity,

good subject, recalling that Johnston once ruefully

rhythm, luminosity ... a revelation of a new north."

admitted that he never capitalized fully on his

It was, more importantly for Johnston, work

paintings and that he considered himself a "gypsy"

which was bringing him enormous financial

rather than a businessman.

success and stability too. The Toronto Telegram of

On another occasion, when Johnston told him

January 11, 1937, noted that Johnston "sold 56

that he had recently sold a painting for one

paintings at his Christmas exhibition this year,

thousand dollars, McCurdy remarked that he must

and 85 a year ago," while an advertisement in the

be doing all right financially as an artist. Johnston

same newspaper in October 1937 noted that

replied that there had been a very long period when

Johnston's paintings were available at Simpson's

he had had difficulty selling a picture for as little as

Franz Johnston Room at seventy-five dollars for a

one hundred dollars, but that now he would "never

20" x 40" canvas, fifty dollars for a 16" x 20", and

sign [his] name below a picture for less than four

twenty dollars for a 12" x 16", with "smaller

hundred." It was a claim he could make with

paintings in various sizes at $10 each."

confidence, in the light of the succession of

It was a level of commercial instinct, leading

successful exhibitions of his work during those

to commercial success, which G. Blair Laing in his

years, at which almost every picture would sell for

Memoirs of an Art Dealer reflected on with some

that kind of price, and frequently better.

admiration. Johnston, he noted, became

At that period, Johnston's work was being

"intrigued with the paintings of Choultse

shown in a number of Toronto galleries. Writing in

[Russian emigre artist Iwan R Choultse, living 70

SNOW AND LIGHT: PAINTING THE NORTHLAND and working in Paris in the 1930s, who had been

She continues:

a court artist to the last Czar] and carefully studied his technique ... What he learned from

It is the type of thing which this artist has

the Choultse style was to help make [him]

done before, but it is worlds different. You

c

extremely popular and he became a best seller'

don't feel as if this were a northern

artist of the 30s."

adventure story, slicked out by a terribly

So strongly was Johnston drawn to the works

clever performer who knew he could make

of Choultse, Laing wrote, that "if we happened to

you blink in amazement at his light effects.

have a Choultse in stock and Johnston heard

Nor are sentiment and romance allowed in

about it, he would hurry to the gallery, enthusing

where they should not be. You feel that

in anticipation of discovering further mysteries of

Franz Johnston really got a tremendous

the master's technique, all the while murmuring

kick out of the subject and relayed his

praises of his work."

feelings ardently. In short, expression and

One year later, in 1938, when more of

technique have been combined. When a

Johnston's paintings of his northern journeys were

work has that genuine stamp you can

shown, Pearl McCarthy reviewed them in the

acclaim it, no matter how your personal

Globe and Mail on December 8. Admitting that

taste in pictures may run.

she was not one of Johnston's greatest admirers, she nevertheless was unstinting in her praise for

In a comment at the end of a review of the

one painting in particular, although her review

same exhibition, Augustus Bridle noted that

also speaks to the reservations many critics had

"Canada's farthest-north regular painter has for

about the facile element in some of his work. The

three years brought the land of crackling sub-zero,

painting is of a dog team setting out in the light of

shivering spruces and translucent husky dogs into

dawn. Describing his "evergreen woods" and his

picture shows here."

"jewels of light on the snow in the foreground,"

He went on to report that whatever Johnston

McCarthy declares the colour to be "magnificent."

was currently showing was but a "borean overture

71

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY to a trip this trail-infatuated painter will make ... to paint on Canada's so-called 'lost frontier.'" That trip took place the following February, 1939, and in many ways it proved to be the pinnacle of Johnston's busy and questing life.

72

SEVEN PAINTING THE ARCTIC

"T

his week Franz Johnston is leaving for the Arctic Circle to paint 'the greatest group of Canadian paintings

ever produced'," the Toronto Telegram announced on February 20,1939. Late in 1938, the mining magnate Gilbert LaBine, founder and vice-president of Eldorado Gold Mines, admired some of Johnston's northern paintings at an exhibition at Malloney's Gallery, Johnston's dealer in Toronto, where he also learned of Johnston's almost obsessive interest in the north, and of his desire to go further and further north to paint. In a challenge to which Johnston responded with enthusiasm and alacrity, LaBine offered to fly Johnston into his remote radium mine at Eldorado,

73

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY on Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories,

tinged with blue and pink and grey-greens

1,750 miles northwest of Edmonton.

tower above it. The windy bays, the fjords

Interviewed in the Globe and Mail on

biting deep into the cliffs, the countless

February 23, 1939, on the eve of his departure, an

channels, the desolate bare shores, the high

excited Johnston showed the reporter the gifts that

precipices stained with the rainbow hues

had been arriving for him since he announced his

of the various metallic oxides — red,

adventure. "Ever since they heard I was going," he

black, pink, white and green. In the

exclaimed, "my friends have been sending me

greenstones east of McTavish Bay occur

gifts. I feel like a bride!"

numerous interrupted stringers of

A few days later he left for Edmonton with his

calcspar, containing chalcopyrite, and the

painting gear, including extra supplies of oil

steep rocky shores which here present

colours, pastels, and paper, for he had been asked

themselves to the lake are often stained

to run an informal painting school for the mine's

with cobalt bloom and copper green.

employees; "Franz Johnston's most northerly art school" a reporter noted. From Edmonton, a

It was exactly what Johnston craved and he spent five months at Eldorado, painting dozens of

company airplane flew him in to Great Bear Lake. In The Mysterious North, Pierre Berton

canvases and filling his sketchbooks with pictures

describes Great Bear Lake, the most northerly lake

of the landscape, the mine environments and the

of fresh water in the world. It is, he writes:

mine workers, trappers, Indians, and Inuit who lived and worked there.

An enormous biological desert a quarter

"[H]e has not seen a horse in the land where

the size of England ... so cold that no

Mounties drive dog teams and sleds," a reporter in

plankton lives in its deepest waters, and

the Toronto Telegram paraphrased on April 1,

fish never leave the shoreline. The water

1939, from a letter Johnston had sent out of

never rises more than a few degrees above

Eldorado the month before. "... [T]his adventure-

freezing. Steep walls of Precambrian,

artist found life just beginning at 40 below.

74

PAINTING THE ARCTIC This hand-made envelope, sent out of Radium City in 1939, is a typical piece of Franz Johnston fun. (Courtesy of Mrs. Wenawae Stevenson)

Strange bewildering life, amid snowscapes of

Franklin Arbuckle, that his Eldorado experience

dazzling light such as this realistic snow painter

had been the most significant of his life. Johnston was popular in and around the

never found in northern Quebec." Painting in temperatures which were usually

mining camp, liked by everyone for his good sense

around minus 40 degrees — cold enough to

of humour, his willingness to endure the harsh

congeal his oil paints and force him to work in

conditions without complaint, and for his natural

thick woolen socks, through which he became

outgoing personality and friendliness. He liked the

adroit at manipulating his paint brushes, pastels

Inuit particularly, and they apparently liked him.

and coloured pencils — Johnston reveled in the

During a stopover at a sealing camp on the

brilliance of the light, the intense clarity and

Coppermine River, the Inuit he met befriended

colour generated in those rarefied atmospheric

him readily and built him an igloo, and he

conditions, and the grandeur of the awe-inspiring

subsequently painted portraits of several of them,

landscape. He was later to tell his son-in-law,

and a number of Inuit subjects, including one of

75

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY his most dramatic narrative paintings, Iggituark,

met there. Subsequently, following the extensive

which depicts an ancient Inuit woman set adrift

and much-heralded exhibition of paintings from

on an ice flow by her people because she has

the north in the United States, Johnston was made

become too weak to keep up with them.

a member of the National Geographic Society.

Between early February and late June, he

Speaking of the paintings he had done in that

completed more than one hundred paintings and

period, Johnston liked to tell stories of their

dozens of pencil and pastel sketches at Great Bear

reception by the public. In one of them, a city

Lake, and at Coronation Gulf, a company outpost

dweller standing before a painting with a big sky is

even further north to which he had himself flown

reported to have exclaimed, "I have never seen a

to paint and where adverse weather conditions

blue like that." To which Johnston liked to claim

trapped him at the RCMP outpost on the

he had replied, "Yes, but wouldn't you like to?" Another story from this time concerned a mine

Coppermine River for a week. Another of the outstanding narrative oil

owner who paused before a painting of a dog team

paintings Johnston completed and showed in

and exclaimed, "It stinks!" continuing, "That

1940, from sketches made at Eldorado, is

team's so real I can smell it!" Johnston claimed the

Snowblind, which some have described as one of

man paid a thousand dollars for the painting.

Canada's great paintings. Tragedy and pathos

Johnston's reputation has not weathered as

combine effectively in this picture of a blind man,

well as the reputations of his fellow founders of

lost in the vast and horrifying emptiness of the ice

the Group of Seven because, having formally

and snow. It is Johnston at his most detailed,

broken with the group on his return to Toronto

dramatic, and emotional.

from Winnipeg in 1924, he developed and refined

In the five months of his Arctic odyssey,

a highly lyrical, colourful, and linear style of

Johnston created some of the finest chronicles of

painting which, more traditional and narrative

life in the Canadian Arctic and sub-Arctic, and an

compared to their more radical approach, was

almost priceless record of the last days of the

calculated to sell well to the middle-brow

traditional way of life of the Indians and Inuit he

homeowners who attended his frequent

76

PAINTING THE ARCTIC exhibitions. In consequence, there is some truth in

On his return to Toronto, Johnston was

the accusations of decorativeness and prettiness

lionized. The Telegram's headline on July 15

aimed at his work, for Johnston's colours were so

declared, "Artist back from Arctic thrilled by life in

vivid and accurate it was popularly believed that

North — Franz Johnston completes five month

mineralogists could identify ore-bearing rocks in

sketching vast ice domain — was real adventure."

his paintings from the colour alone. Johnston

The article went on to note:

himself remarked, on his return from Eldorado, that "some of the colours are so vivid that even

Franz Johnston arrived in town yesterday,

many of the northerners would not believe

bringing with him 100 sketches, mostly

[them], but I am backed up by colour films taken

finished, a lot of subject material, a very

by Dr. Losier, the mine doctor."

complete diary, silver fox skins for the

Not all of the paintings he brought out of the

feminine members of his family, a pelt of a

Arctic are memorable, but the best of them satisfy

nasty tempered Barrens grizzly, and some

the need many of us have for pictures which

photographs, also a lively bag of anecdotes

display evocative qualities of colour, balance, and

of Eskimo life.

narrative composition — the very qualities of which Johnston was undoubtedly a master.

The paper reported that Johnston said he

Meanwhile, in Johnston's absence from

found southern Ontario very strange — "an

Toronto, Malloney's sent a recent epic painting,

unbelievably green, flat land" — after so long

The Ojibways, to be exhibited at the 1939 World's

away, in such a beautiful but hostile climate, but

Fair in New York, but as the Telegram's writer

that he was pleasantly surprised the change was

explained, in the light of the "complete art show"

not too difficult to acclimatize to, "after five

Johnston would carry back to Edmonton from

months tramping about in moccasins."

Eldorado, his "epic of canoe transportation will be

Elsewhere in the same newspaper, another

now a fairy fantasy, compared to the big boreans

reporter noted that "the chubby artist" was no

show of Great Bear Lake."

longer "the volatile Franz Johnston who had gone

77

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY forth to conquer the Arctic in paint, but a placid,

among whom he had lived and whose confidence

peaceful individual."

he had relied on to enable him to complete his

"That's what the North does to you," Johnston

work, and the matter was dropped by all parties.

explained. "It slows up your thinking, and it's a

Looking back on the experience eighteen

land where you have plenty of time to think.... I

months later, Johnston told the Toronto Daily

felt as if I were in another world. You can't

Star on December 3, 1940, "I'll never be sorry I

understand what living in that peculiarly

caught the Eldorado scene when I did. It was a

fascinating Northland does to you. Since April, I

glorious adventure; but for everyday magic as

have hardly experienced darkness. I have not seen

varied as Santa Glaus' pack, give me always grand

the stars. And the people and the crowds here,

old Ontario."

they seem so strange to me." Thanking LaBine for his part in financing the

In 1940 he sold his school at Balm Beach,

great adventure, Johnston noted that it cost seven

Georgian Bay, and bought "a relique of an old

hundred dollars to fly in and out of Great Bear. "I

regime" as Augustus Bridle called their new home,

couldn't have done it otherwise [than with

the town hall at Wyebridge, Ontario, which had

LaBine's help] ... after the Arctic, the prairies were

once been the local Orange Hall. It was the kind of

the most glorious things I have ever seen. You get

interesting old building that Johnston typically

pretty tired of rock with sparse trees hanging on

would have instantly admired, with a stage, make-

like grim death."

up rooms, a police court and even three prison

Later, a sour note was struck, when a number

cells in the basement. His son, Paul Rodrik, a

of newspapers reported that the miners at

talented designer and renovator, converted it for

Eldorado and their families had taken exception

him into a home and studio, and he lived for most

to Johnston's reported remark that "everyone in

of the rest of his life there, using it as his base for

the Arctic is bushed [crazy]," but in his usual

increasing trips to the north to paint.

jovial and good-natured way Johnston rebutted

It was in 1940 that he completed one of his

the criticism that he had betrayed the people

largest canvases, Shack in the Woods. It was a 78

PAINTING THE ARCTIC Interior of the family home at Wyebridge, middle 1940s. The shields on the wall, modelled on those around the walls at the Arts and Letters Club, were painted by Wenawae Stevenson. (Courtesy of Mrs. Wenawae Stevenson)

painting from his "Nipigon territory" adventures,

the time. Ruefully claiming it as his masterpiece,

painted at Jack McCurdy's place at Onaman

Johnston told McCurdy, "I may be able to paint a

Lake, northeast of Lake Nipigon, and an

better picture, but I doubt it."

American collector who saw it at an exhibition in

Johnston exhibited at Eaton's Gallery in 1942,

Toronto bought it for eight hundred and fifty

where Augustus Bridle proved especially sensitive

dollars. In some way, it ended up with the New

to the artist's highly developed sense of light.

York firm of art printers, Morris and Bendine

"[His] woodland scenes are dark and

who, in subsequent years, brought out literally

exuberant," he wrote. "Evergreens are luxurious.

millions of reproductions of the painting.

Cedars — nobody ever painted these beauties

Johnston claimed that next to Gainsborough's

more delicately ... and the constant revelation in

Blue Boy, it was the most reproduced painting in

this artist's work is the magic of light, in which he

the world, although he received not a penny in

learned a high degree of instinctive mastery."

royalties from those sales. His friend, Jack

Of an exhibition of paintings of the landscape

McCurdy, remembered Johnston saying that he

around Wyebridge, at the same gallery the next

could have retired on the royalties of that picture

year, Bridle wrote approvingly of Johnston's

alone, had he thought to negotiate for them at

"green-blue skies and lavender snows; blue snow79

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY wraiths in the shadow against a blaze of early

the Toronto Telegram foregrounded a painting in

morning golden light; ravishing snakes of water as

the show entitled Enchantment, saying that the

opalescent as rainbow-backed beetles; tousles of

title "might be taken as the title for the whole

brushwood that look like jackpine or tamarack

exhibition.... People who have never bought [art]

because painted so vividly."

before," he continued, "are among those carrying off his pieces."

To understand Johnston's extraordinary popularity it is sufficient to know that of the

"People seem hungry for this kind of ecstatic

eighty paintings he exhibited in the Eaton's show

pleasure in the midst of grim times," he

of 1943, more than half sold in the first three

surmised, adding that "while not finding

weeks, at prices ranging from fifty to one

complete satisfaction ourselves in this type of

thousand dollars each, and that he was able to tell

beauty, we can admire the skill and recognize the

one potential buyer, who had sought a discount

joy it gives to many."

for buying three paintings, that he would not even

Johnston liked to tell the story of a farmhand

give her a discount if she bought the whole show.

from the Wyebridge area to whom he had shown a

His prices "had been very carefully set," he

painting of a horse. Recognizing the animal as

explained, "and value must be given for value ...

belonging to a mutual neighbour, he asked how

the day has gone by when I had to give bargains to

much the picture would sell for, and when told

the public in order to sell my pictures."

two hundred and fifty dollars, exclaimed, "I don't

In a review of an exhibition of his work at the

believe you. Why, I could buy that horse for eighty,

Eaton's Gallery on College Street in March 1944,

but I wouldn't give that much for it if it did not

the Globe and Mail's critic reported that Johnston

look any more like a horse than that animal you

possessed "virtuosity in paint" and continued that

have painted there."

"of course, the workmanship is utterly

Johnston took his last painting trip to "the

remarkable," a truth even his greatest detractors

Nipigon territory, through the Tashota gold fields"

had to allow of his work.

in 1946. He went in the company of his son, Paul

Writing of the same exhibition, the critic of

Rodrik, and suffered a serious accident. In a note 80

PAINTING THE ARCTIC in the catalogue of an exhibition of his own and

Johnston settled down to a quieter life, painting

his father's paintings at Trent University in the

landscapes of the gentle, agricultural countryside

spring of 1973, Rodrik tells what happened on

around southern Georgian Bay, without losing his

that trip:

ability to please his public. An exhibition in March 1948 elicited praise from the Toronto

Frank was not quite his old self. He had

Telegram's critic for work which "depicted the

burned the torch of creativity too brightly

peace of the Ontario farm and summer and

for too long. After an accident on one of

autumn woodland."

[our] two dogsleds, Frank returned to

Early in 1948 the Johnstons moved back to

McCurdy's camp. [I] proceeded with the

Midland from Wyebridge and also bought an

other dog-team thirty-three miles to the

island in Rankin Lake, south of Parry Sound.

north, hopped a freight to Nakina, where

Johnston divided the last year of his life between

[I] chartered an old Fairchild from Austin Airways to fly Frank

Photograph of Franz and Florence Johnston at Wyebridge, Late 1940s. (Courtesy of Mrs. Wenawae Stevenson)

to Geraldton. From there he had helped his father to Fort William (Thunder Bay today), and back to Toronto, from where they returned to Wyebridge to paint their subsequent exhibitions, although Frank, Rodrik asserts, "never recovered from the trip, and the years of immense productivity ran out on him ..."

After that last trip to the north, 81

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY their cottage on the island, and the house in

undisturbed by modernists. [He was] bearded,

Midland. Later in the year he was diagnosed with

ebullient, full of life and experience. Johnston was

a heart condition and advised to reduce his

an outstanding human being."

working hours and exertions, but he continued to paint his farmland and woodland scenes until the middle of the following year. In early July, 1949, when an illness he could not shake off brought him low, he entered Toronto Western Hospital at the insistence of his family. He died in the hospital of a cerebral haemorrhage on July 9 at the age of 61, and was buried at the Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto. According to Rodrik, he left a complete decade of work prepared for the 1950s, which he did not live to pursue. Although his work had become somewhat repetitive, and even formulaic, in his last years and had consequently fallen out of favour with many of the newer critics, Johnston's obituaries generously caught the essence of the man and his achievements. "An adventurer in the spirit of the old coureurs du bois," Ross MacDonald concluded in his Toronto Telegram obituary on July 10,1949. "A realist by principle," wrote the Toronto Daily Star on July 11. "Franz Johnston was 82

EIGHT SLIM PICKINGS fter his death, Johnston's reputation

A

rapidly faded as new painters, and new schools and directions, superseded him

and his world. True, there were numerous art galleries which held examples of his work, and there were hundreds of homes in Toronto, and across the country, where original works and prints of his works held pride of place on sitting room walls and over mantelpieces. But the critical esteem which had attended most of his professional life dissipated as a new generation of critics began to reassess and reshape the history of art in Canada. Fourteen years after his death, on September 18, 1963, a plaque to Johnston's memory was erected by the Ontario Department of Tourism and

83

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY Publicity at his Wyebridge home. Unveiled by his

years a dedicated and energetic member, held a

wife, it said in part, "he captured on canvas the

centenary exhibition of Johnston's work. In the

lonely grandeur of the Canadian northland, thus

exhibition, gathered from private collections from

ending Canadian dependence upon Europe for

across Canada, there were two paintings, Algoma

artistic inspiration."

and Woodland, which had been in the very first

Subsequently, in the late 1960s, Johnston's

Group of Seven exhibition in 1920. Woodland had

body was removed from a plot in the Mount

been Johnston's wedding gift to Augustus Bridle,

Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto to the grounds of

who was one of the fathers of the Arts and Letters

the McMichael Canadian

at

Club and a Toronto art critic who had been a

Kleinburg, north of the city, the home and

generous and perceptive reviewer of Johnston's

personal collection of Canadian art given to the

work for thirty years.

Collection

people of Ontario by Robert and Signe

Johnston's life had been, as Paul Rodrik

McMichael. Johnston was reinterred there

claimed in the introduction to an exhibition

alongside other members of the Group of Seven,

catalogue in 1973, one of "poetry, hard work, and

in a specially consecrated plot in a ravine

imagination.... Few men," Rodrik argued, "have

landscape of pine and skies he would surely have

loved Canada with such ardent integrity."

painted had he known of it in his life. Like his

However, the essence of Johnston and his

friends and erstwhile colleagues, Johnston is

work is perhaps best summed up not in the

commemorated there with a plaque fixed to a

measured words of a metropolitan art critic, nor

rough-hewn rock which was brought down from

in the dry, analytical language of an exhibition

Algoma

received

catalogue, but in the modest but perceptive

posthumously the Academy Medal of the Royal

obituary published by the Owen Sound Sun-Times

Canadian Academy of Arts at a ceremony in

on July 16,1949:

and,

like

them,

he

Ottawa in 1970.

"In a sense," wrote the anonymous obituarist,

In 1988, as has already been noted, the Arts

"Franz Johnston dedicated his professional life to

and Letters Club, of which Johnston was for many

Canada, for he had a deep appreciation for what 84

SLIM PICKINGS this country had to offer.... He painted Canadian things because he knew them best, and he knew them best because he chose to live and work among the scenes and the people he portrayed."

Photograph of Johnston in the year of his death. (Courtesy of Mrs. Wenawae Stevenson)

85

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I REMEMBER: AN INTERVIEW WITH WENAWAE STEVENSON In an interview with Roger Burford Mason at Bracebridge, Ontario in March, 1998 When and where were you born? I was born in Toronto in May, 1913, when my parents were living in the West End. I was the second of four children. Frances-Anne was the oldest, Paul was younger than me, and Lawren, who was named for Lawren Harris, was the youngest. What are your earliest memories of your family? They are wonderful. My father was always exuberant and such good fun. He was always taking us out of the house for walks and one of my earliest memories is of being so little that I had to hurry

87

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY along just to keep up with him. It was all a long

a sister to us. The three of us — mother, Frances-

time ago now, of course, but, for example,

Anne, and me — exchanged clothes often, and

Christmases at home were so lovely. The house

went shopping together. She taught us at a very

would be decorated with bluebirds strung across

early age how to bake and sew, although Frances-

the ceiling. The tree was not decorated until

Anne wasn't too interested in those things. But she

Christmas Eve, and then on Christmas morning

advised us well, and encouraged us in everything

we'd all have to gather at the top of the stairs, the

we did, and always told us how wonderful we

whole family, and then we'd all come down the

were! Mother made clothes for us, and for our

stairs in succession; it was quite the ceremony.

dolls, and she supported daddy in everything he

Birthdays were great fun too. When I think of

did. He would bring in new paintings to show her

my father I think of someone who was always

and ask for her criticism and she would give it to

giving presents, and bringing home to us the kind

him. Sometimes he'd get a little upset at her for

of wonderful, unusual things that the average

that, but he usually took her advice, I noticed. And

person wouldn't even see or think of — elephants

if daddy said, "Florence, I want to go out

that moved, fascinating things for us all. And he

sketching," she'd drop everything and out she'd go

bought my mother beautiful things; beautiful

with him. She often went sketching with him. Or

clothes, and hats, a long cloak with a scarlet lining, I

he'd come into the house and say, "There's a

remember, and lovely jewelery which was mostly

wonderful sunset, come on out!" and she was glad

hand-crafted — silver pendants and chains, all

to go out with him to see it. I think my father was

unusual, and very elegant. He was very flamboyant

very fortunate to have someone like her.

himself and the things he bought were very flamboyant. But I never recall him doing anything

What do you remember of your life in Winnipeg?

in the house — not housework. He was always busy,

I was about eight when we went there and I loved

though. Always working, painting, or designing.

Winnipeg, though I remember that it was very

My mother was an amazing mother and a very

cold! We used to go to the art school where daddy

loving woman. In our later years she was more like

was the principal when there were exhibitions. It

88

I REMEMBER: AN INTERVIEW WITH WENAWAE STEVENSON was connected to the Board of Trade building, so

Tell me something about your life at Balm Beach.

we'd go to the art school and then across to the

Well, at first we used to go there for our holidays.

gallery to see the paintings. I remember that

There was an old log cabin that we rented for the

daddy used to take us tobogganing, too. I think he

summer that used to belong to one of my

enjoyed it as much as we did.

mother's uncles. It had been moved from

He encouraged us a lot to take an interest in

somewhere around Perkinsfield, down to Balm

art. I used to make batiks with him, and help him

Beach a few miles away. The first time we went

with the framing, and he taught me drawing and

there, I think daddy was sketching somewhere

watercolours. It was all done informally, but it

nearby and he took us there to stay at that cabin

went on all the time.He encouraged us to visit art

while he was sketching. But then he bought it.

exhibitions and look at paintings, and he'd explain

They didn't live there all year long, though; it was

what we were seeing to us. He gave us an

just for the spring, summer, and early fall, then we

appreciation of all of that, and he had a

went back to the city. You couldn't have wintered

marvellous library, vast, and not just of art books,

there, it would have been impracticable; too cold.

but books of every kind.

But when he decided to open his art school, there

But, of course, he had a lot of art books — the

was this old log cabin, and a long kind of a house

old masters, with illustrations. He was always

with little rooms in it, like dormitory rooms, and

curious about art through the ages; I remember

there were tents, and that's what the school was

that he had a large and wonderful book, the

like at first. He named it Skidawaboo. He didn't

Egyptian Book of the Dead, and I referred to it

know at the time that it meant "firewater" in the

many, many times for designs for art and jewelery.

Indian language around there, and the Indians

Daddy read a lot about religion in his later years

used to come around a lot in those days, selling

— the Bible, Science and Health (the magazine of

their wares, and they'd laugh when they heard that

the Christian Science movement), keys to the

the place was named Skidawaboo, because daddy

scriptures. He taught us to have respect for books

never had alcohol in the house. Well, daddy's art school progressed so well that

and to handle them with great care.

89

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY they moved the original building about a mile

and across the mantelpiece he lettered, "As the sun

along the road to a hilly area overlooking the

colours Nature, so Art colours Life." On the

beach. My brother Paul and daddy moved it. We

wooden windows facing the bay he painted

looked out over the bay to Meaford and

seagulls, and on the front windows (facing inland)

Collingwood, about twenty-two miles away, and

he painted flowers and woodsy things. There were

Paul and daddy built a gazebo, so daddy could

grapevines on the staircase from the floor to the

watch the sunsets. They had a huge studio there,

top of the stairs, and a portrait of an Indian in his

and lots of rooms with bathrooms for the art

headdress on one of the big support posts. I

school and also for us as a home. Tondakea, which

remember, too, a beautiful stone fireplace whose

is what they called it, means "where the world

hearth was a large half-circle of the same stone.

vanishes." Daddy and Paul got along very well. Paul

For the students, there were double cabins with

was very imaginative, and not very practical — not

screen porches, and a large building set back from

that daddy was in all things, either! They were very

the road with bedrooms and a recreation area, and

good friends, although there was a lot they didn't

another house called Roderick House which had

agree about. There was a period, it wasn't a very

five or six simple bedrooms in it and a long porch

long one, when they did a lot together. They went

in front of the rooms. Daddy's studio had a

off painting together, and they had plans and

balcony connecting it to their bedroom. It had a

projects they did together but then Paul married

railing made from intertwined, peeled branches

and had a family, and moved to Dorset (Ontario).

that Paul designed and made.

There were two small lakes nearby, and woods all around us on that large property, and daddy used

As you grew up, what was your relationship like

to take the students for walks through the woods,

with your father? Was he stern when you began to

naming the trees and plants as they went. He even

have boyfriends and go out with your friends, or was

had wooden benches made for them to sit and rest.

he an indulgent father?

It was a beautiful house. Daddy painted a

Oh, he was always very ... when daddy said not to

lovely mural of Georgian Bay above the fireplace,

do a thing, then we wouldn't have dreamed of 90

I REMEMBER: AN INTERVIEW WITH WENAWAE STEVENSON doing that thing. He was a disciplinarian, though

What do you remember about your father's painting

not an unkind one. If we were talking late in the

habits?

night when we should have been asleep, he'd call

He always had a large studio, wherever we were

up to say, "I don't want to hear any more noise

living, and he painted all the time. He'd get up in

from you. This is the last time!" And, of course, we

the morning, early, and he'd quickly wash and

didn't know what would happen if we didn't stop

then roll up his sleeves. Now, most men roll their

talking, because we always did.

sleeves to the elbow, but he'd roll his right up to

He was very strict, but very fair. And as far as my

his shoulders. When we lived in Wyebridge he'd

friends were concerned, well, he got on well with

get up and go downstairs and there were about

them. I was engaged to Ron [York] Wilson, the

fourteen windows downstairs and he'd let the

artist, for a while, and daddy liked him and he

blinds up with a rattle and a bang ... one ... two

always looked forward to his visits. But he was a

... three ... and of course that woke everybody up.

very generous father; he'd let us stay out late when

And then we'd have breakfast and he'd start

we were older, and didn't make a fuss about those

painting, and he would work all day, and then in

things, and we'd have parties with our friends from

the evenings too. He was just so prolific. He

the art school at our place. I think he had every

painted pictures, and little sketches, and he made

confidence in us, and he wasn't so strict about

batiks, and he painted lamps and lampshades, and

things like that. He trusted us. And when I got

the pots they sold in their store in Toronto. He

married, he was very fond of my husband, Jimmy

even painted the carpet in his studio in Thornhill.

Stevenson. It was a wonderful relationship they had;

He'd paint his own painting and he'd paint on

they were always very close. He was a professional

commission. He worked all the time but I don't

singer, as a matter of fact. He was the singer on

remember him doing the kind of commercial

Horace Lapp's show on the radio in Toronto and the

work he started with, not in the latter years. His

soloist in his church choir, and he always sang in the

lettering was lovely. I don't think I ever saw

Toronto Messiah at Christmas. And daddy liked to

anyone who could letter better than daddy. When

sing, too, though not professionally.

he was doing commercial work, that was good too. 91

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY I remember that mother had to bake a pie for him

was about twelve they took me to the Royal

to paint for an advertisement, and he made it look

Winter Fair in Toronto, and I was thrilled by it.

so realistic...!

Sometimes Lady Windle would bring her niece, Marjorie, to Tondakea with her. There was always

Did you know a lot of the well-known artists of the

music and singing. We had a piano, of course, and

time?

there would be mother playing and daddy singing,

Oh yes. Jim MacDonald and daddy were very

and other people singing.

close, and his wife — I always called her Aunty

Wylie Grier was a friend of daddy's and

Joan — they were good friends of mother and

mother's. The Hahns were friends too, although

daddy's. We visited with each other a lot, and I

they were more casual friends, but I remember

remember Aunty Joan's house, and their son

Manny — Emanuel Hahn — was my teacher at

Thoreau, who was also an artist. And I remember

the Toronto art school. He and daddy were good

the Lismers, although I was young then, and we

friends too. Charlie (C. W.) Jefferys and his family

didn't see them so much. And I have vague

were great friends of daddy's and mother's, with

memories of Lawren Harris coming to the house.

four children — all girls — about the same age as

But we moved around so much — Winnipeg, and

our family. Their two eldest daughters and Fran

then back to Toronto, and then up to Georgian

and I were great friends. I remember from our

Bay, so there wasn't a constant group of good

Canadian history books at school that C. W.

friends. One of their friends was Lady Windle; I

Jefferys did all the illustrations, and they were

used to call her Ma Edith. Her husband was Sir

beautifully done — often pen and ink drawings,

Bertram Windle, who was an Egyptologist and a

and beautifully detailed. I remember, as well, that

university professor, though I don't know when or

some of the notebooks we used at school had

why he was knighted. My parents met Lady

reproductions of daddy's paintings on their

Windle and Sir Bertram through her interest in

covers. I was very proud of that.

daddy's art, and she used to come up to Tondakea

Another friend was Arthur Henning, a well-

and study with daddy. I remember that when I

known painter at that time, who was known for his 92

I REMEMBER: AN INTERVIEW WITH WENAWAE STEVENSON realistic interpretations of early Canadian life.

man, and mother always dressed beautifully for

Healy Willan was another good friend of daddy's.

them [the exhibitions] and they saw to it that my

His studio was very close to the Maloney Art

sister and I always looked right, too. My favourite

Gallery (where daddy exhibited). Oh, and lots of

gallery of all the ones he exhibited in was the one

other artists and musicians, singers —people who

that became the Art Gallery of Ontario. It wasn't

had a common interest in the arts and were

where it is now in those days; it was a really small

involved with the Arts and Letters Club in Toronto.

gallery, and right next to the art school. In the

It was always a busy, sociable household.

building they called the Grange. They were the

When we lived in Toronto, daddy used to take

highlights of our lives at that time. So busy, so

Fran (Frances-Anne) and I down to Shea's

many people, and so elegant.

vaudeville every Friday night. And he loved the movie shows too. You see, he worked so intensely

Did you have the impression that he was financially

that I think it was a release for him to go out and

successful as a painter?

just relax, and laugh, and not work. If it had been

Oh, there were ups and downs, mostly ups,

invented then, television would probably have

although I remember that there were times when

been great for him!

mother would have to watch what she was buying. It was harder during the Depression years, of

What was it like to attend one of Franz Johnston's

course. My mother enjoyed shopping, though she

exhibitions?

wasn't extravagant, like my father. But I can

We always attended daddy's exhibitions,

remember going shopping with my mother and

particularly the opening night. They were very

Ron Wilson, and we got out of the store and Ron

crowded and busy, and because it was opening

turned to me and said, "I've never been shopping

night, we all dressed for them. Formally, tuxedo

with anyone who shops like your mother. She just

and black tie. Except daddy always wore a velvet

picks things up and takes them, and she doesn't

smoking jacket and a Windsor tie — the typical,

even look at the price!" I guess she was frugal in

floppy, artist's bow-tie. He was a very handsome

the things she would make rather than buy, but 93

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY there were times when she just bought the things

many moments to fret about him being away. And

she liked. On the whole, though, she was much

when he came home, there would be a big dinner

more sensible about money than my father.

at home to celebrate.

Daddy would come home with a new car one time, or a new set of encyclopedias; big gifts, but

What was the relationship between your parents

often not too practical, under the circumstances.

like?

But it was great, always a surprise. Great to be a

They were an affectionate couple — not

child in a home like that. I thought every family

smooching and that sort of thing, but obviously

was like ours. It was quite a shock to learn that it

very fond of each other, and very considerate to

wasn't the case!

each other. And mother provided for us all so beautifully in our everyday life; that was how she

How did you react, as a family, to his painting trips

showed her love for us, I think. People would

and absences?

come to dinner, and they would entertain, and she

He'd often be away for months — when he went

always gave so much of herself. Formal dinners at

to the Arctic that time, or up to McCurdy's camp

times, but not very often, but particularly in

around Nipigon — and it never bothered us. We

Winnipeg, I remember. They did a lot of

just got on with our lives, and he wrote frequently,

entertaining there. And in daddy's huge studio

and sent drawings and so on. He'd write letters on

above the Arts and Letters Club. They would

birch bark and they would come through the mail

throw big parties there. Everybody and his brother

all right. And when he went away, he'd arrange for

would be there. They would take us children to

a gift to come to the house for my mother every

those parties and as a matter of fact, when the

week. Flowers, or something from Laura Secord.

guests arrived, we would help to greet them. We'd

And when he came back he'd bring the most

stand and shake their hands as they came in. We

lavish gifts for everybody. We just accepted his

were at the Arts and Letters Club a lot; whenever

absences; it was part of his artist's life, and mother

there was anything interesting on there, daddy

was busy with four children, so she didn't have too

would take us. I sang in a school choir at one time 94

I REMEMBER: AN INTERVIEW WITH WENAWAE STEVENSON and we won a choral festival and we sang up in the

nothing I could ask him that he wouldn't be able to

balcony at the club, with daddy and mother and

answer me about. And he was unusual for a man

their friends down below, looking up at us.

in those times, because he would always talk about

Mother married again after daddy died, and

his feelings. That's why he was so easy to talk to, I

then at the end of her life she came to live here, in

guess. He liked good food; he liked to eat. He used

this house, with my husband and me. This is

to smoke a lot; mother said he'd smoke a hundred

where she died.

a day when they were young. I remember that people would buy packets of cigarettes, but daddy

Did you ever feel that growing up in an artist's

would buy them by the carton. But when I was

house, when your father was away from home so

around twenty, he stopped smoking, just like that.

much, was a disadvantage?

And he never drank. One Christmas, my brother

Never gave it a thought. In fact, when I married

Lawren and Jimmy and I drove up to Wyebridge in

and left home at last, I missed it. I missed the

a real winter snowstorm — it was blowing snow so

variety and the excitement. It was such a different

hard we could only follow the telegraph posts to

life.... One thing that we did not like about it,

get there — and I remember that when we got

perhaps, was the fact that we never attended any

there, Jimmy had brought some liquor, and daddy

school for more than a year. The family moved all

said, "You people need a drink," and he went to

the time — Toronto, Winnipeg, Thornhill, back to

pour us one from Jimmy's bottle but he had so

Toronto — so we never really put down any roots

little experience of pouring drinks that he poured

as far as friends and school were concerned.

each of us about a tumbler full, as though it was water! He didn't drink, so he had no idea.

What do you think were your father's strengths, as a human being and as an artist?

He declined quite quickly in his last years. Do you

He was a strong character. He had wonderful

remember that time well?

knowledge of anything you asked him about. He

It was so sad. He used to tell us that he thought

was widely read and I always felt that there was

he'd die before he was sixty, and one of the things 95

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY that he said kept him going was he wanted to see

were always well received. We could hardly wait to

my son, Michael, growing up. He had very high

read the reviews the day after the show opened. I

blood pressure from the pace he lived life. His

feel badly that when I go into these galleries I see

doctor, who lived across the road from daddy in

so few of daddy's works and he painted so much.

Midland, used to say, "Your father has lived the

Where have all those paintings gone?

lives of three people already," and he died about a year or so after that. Towards the end they came down to our house in Toronto to stay with us, and daddy was having so much trouble breathing that he had to sit up straight in a chair. An ambulance came for him and in a few days he died in hospital. When he died, it changed all our lives. The family didn't fall apart — we were spread out all over the place anyway — but the focal point was always daddy and mother, and when he died, the focus seemed to have been lost. How do you think time and events have dealt with your father and his work? I feel he's been unjustly neglected. He put so much into life, in creating beautiful things that people loved, and he hasn't had the proper recognition for what he gave to people. I think it started with the fuss over the Group of Seven thing, but that was just part of his life. And he always stayed friendly with most of them, and his exhibitions 96

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS Housser, R B. A Canadian Art Movement. Toronto: Macmillan, 1926. Jackson, A. Y. A Painter's Country. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin and Co. Ltd., 1958. Harris, Lawren. The Story of The Group of Seven. Toronto: Rous and Mann, 1964. MacDonald, Colin S. A Dictionary of Canadian Artists. Ottawa: Canadian Paperbacks, 1967. Mellen, Peter. The Group of Seven. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1970 Reid, Dennis. The Group of Seven. Notes for the catalogue of an exhibition at the National Gallery, Ottawa, held from 19 June 1970 to 8 September 1970. Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1970. Reid, Dennis. A Bibliography of The Group of Seven. Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1971. Reid, Dennis. A Concise History of Painting in Canada. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973. Rodrik, Paul. A Western Sketchbook. Toronto: White Briar Press, 1973. Lord, Barry. The History of Painting in Canada: Towards a People's Art. Toronto: NC Press, 1974. Laing, G. Blair. Memoirs of an Art Dealer. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1979.

MAGAZINES, NEWSPAPERS, ETC. "Art and artists" Toronto Globe, December 2,1920. "Wealth of colour seen in paintings" The Mail and Empire, December 18,1920. "In the Field of Art" Winnipeg Community Builder, October 15,1921. "Winnipeg Art Topics" Winnipeg Free Press, January 28,1922.

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A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY

Cartoon of Johnston drawn by "Ganes," 1944

"Frank H. Johnston exhibition one of year's local art events." Winnipeg Free Press, December 9,1922. "The Field of Art" by J.M.B., Winnipeg Community Builder, 15 January 1923. The Colonist, Victoria B.C., October 1924. (Referred to in the Toronto Star Weekly, 11 October 1924.) "Johnston never member of Group of Seven — exhibited with its members, but did not formally join, says Toronto painter. Returning from west — is exponent of Dynamic Symmetry." Toronto Star Weekly Magazine, October 11,1924. "Big game hunter's thrill is experienced by artist — Franz Johnston has narrow escape from death while getting material for paintings on exhibition at art gallery until end of December." Toronto Telegram, "Record Room," December 17,1927. "Winter Moods." Toronto Star, February 4,1928. 98

BIBLIOGRAPHY "Johnston exhibits trail extravaganza." Toronto Star, December 7,1938. "Painter feels like a bride on eve of journey to Arctic." The Globe and Mail February 23,1939. "Franz Johnston interprets the spirit of Tom Thomson's message — art tells own story." by Kenneth Wells. Toronto Telegram, Record Room, April 1,1939. "Artist back from the north thrilled by life in north — Franz Johnston completes five months sketching in vast ice domain — was real adventure." No byline, but probably Augustus Bridle. Toronto Telegram, "Record Room "July 15, 1939. "Frank likes Ontario better than Arctic, Toronto artist opens 1940 winter show in Oak Room at Ridpath's, buys Wyebridge town hall" by Augustus Bridle. Toronto Daily Star, December 3,1940. "Franz Johnston's art show proves Toronto sensation. Fifty per cent pictures sold." Midland Free Press, March 31,1943. "Noted Canadian artist, Franz Johnston, dead." by Ken W. MacTaggart. The Globe and Mail, July 11,1949. "Son hopes to trace works of Franz Johnston for biography." by Zena Cherry. Toronto Daily Star, March 23,1969. "Word of Art" by Joan Phillips, St. Catharines Standard, April 18,1969. "Franz Johnston and Group of Seven — A rebel recognized." Bracebridge Herald Gazette, January 29,1970. "Son attempting to refurbish painter's image." by Paul Russell. Toronto Daily Star, September 19,1970. "Group of Seven became six when Frank Johnston quit." by Donald Jones, Toronto Star, September 10,1983.

GALLERY CATALOGUES Exhibition of sketches and paintings by Frank H. Johnston A.R.C.A., O.S.A., Director of the Winnipeg School of Art. Winnipeg Art Gallery, February 1922. Exhibition in pastels, oil and tempera by Frank H. Johnston A.R.C.A. Robert Simpson Company Gallery, Winnipeg, December 1924. Franz Johnston in Retrospect 1888-1949. Notes for a catalogue of an exhibition at the Rothman Gallery, Stratford, by Paul Rodrik, September 1970. Franz Johnston, Frances-Anne Johnston, Paul Rodrik. Notes by Paul Rodrik for the catalogue of an exhibition at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, November 1972.

99

A GRAND EYE FOR GLORY Aviation Paintings. A catalogue of aviation paintings from the two World Wars, compiled by R. E Wodehouse, Curator of the Art Collection at the National Museum of Canada. Ottawa, 1972. Rodrik I Johnston. Catalogue by Paul Rodrik of a retrospective exhibition of works by Paul Rodrik and Franz Johnston at Champlain College, Trent University, Peterborough, March 27 to April 18,1973.

LETTERS, EPHEMERA ETC. A Northern Artist: Frank H. Johnston 1888-1949. A collection of news articles and exhibition reviews compiled by William Street, with a typewritten essay about the artist by the compiler. Toronto 1966. Letter from Frances-Anne Johnston to Dr. Ekchardt. June 15,1969 Letter from Mary Rodrik to Dr. Anne Davis, Curator of Canadian Art, Winnipeg Art Gallery. September 17,1979. A Special Legacy. Speech given by Franklin "Archie" Arbuckle, to the Arts & Letters Club of Toronto on November 16, 1988 at a dinner to launch an exhibition to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Franz Johnston. Reprinted in the Ontario College of Arts faculty magazine, Alumnus, Spring 1989.

100