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Catalogue entry
Michelle Wilson; © McMichael Canadian Art Collection
1908.06
Decorative Landscape: Quotation from Maurice Maeterlinck
c.1908
Ink on paper
12 13/16 x 7 11/16 in. (32.6 x 19.5 cm)
Inscription recto: under curled up ends of scroll, T T; l.r.q., IT IS WELL TO / HAVE VISIONS / OF A BETTER / LIFE THAN THAT OF / EVERY DAY, BUT IT IS THE LIFE OF EVERY / DAY FROM WHICH / ELEMENTS OF A BET- / TER LIFE MUST COME / MAETERLINCK
Inscription verso: on the cardboard backing, in ink, In possession of / Margaret Thomson Tweedale / Tom Thomson's pen and ink / sketch which he gave to his / mother and father for a / Christmas gift; in graphite, Pen and ink sketch by Tom Thomson. Property of TT Estate; u.c., label, AGO 1971
Inscription verso: on the cardboard backing, in ink, In possession of / Margaret Thomson Tweedale / Tom Thomson's pen and ink / sketch which he gave to his / mother and father for a / Christmas gift; in graphite, Pen and ink sketch by Tom Thomson. Property of TT Estate; u.c., label, AGO 1971
Provenance
Estate of the artist
Elizabeth Thomson Harkness, Annan and Owen Sound
Margaret Thomson Tweedale, Toronto
McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg (1980.3.3). Gift of Margaret Thomson Tweedale, Toronto, 1979
Exhibition History
2010 Kleinburg
McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, Ontario, Canada, Defiant Spirits: The Modernist Revolution of the Group of Seven, October 2, 2010–January 30, 2011.Published References
Murray 1971
Murray, Joan. The Art of Tom Thomson. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1971. Exhibition catalogue, p. 17 (repr.)Town & Silcox 1977
Town, Harold, and David P. Silcox. Tom Thomson: The Silence and the Storm. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1977, pp. 57, 233 (repr.)Murray 1994b
Murray, Joan. Northern Lights: Masterpieces of Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven. Toronto: Key Porter Books Limited, 1994, p. 35 (repr.)Reid and Hill 2002
Reid, Dennis and Charles C. Hill. Tom Thomson. Vancouver/Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre with the Art Gallery of Ontario and the National Gallery of Canada, 2002. Exhibition catalogue, p. 54 (repr.)King 2010
King, Ross. Defiant Spirits: The Modernist Revolution of the Group of Seven. Vancouver/Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre and the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, 2011, p. 165.Remarks
In creating this work, Thomson may have looked at illustrations such as Dora Greenwell McChesney’s “A Throw of the Dice,” Evening News [Toronto], 1 March 1902.
Record last updated March 9, 2016. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Murray, Joan. ""Decorative Landscape: Quotation from Maurice Maeterlinck, c.1908 (1908.06)." In Tom Thomson Catalogue Raisonné. www.tomthomsoncatalogue.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=50 (accessed on May 19, 2024).