Canada's GROUP of SEVEN and INUIT Art

Canadian Artists known as the GROUP OF SEVEN began working together in 1920. Tom Tomson, a commercial artist that died before the group exhibited had a big influence upon their work. Tomson was an avid outdoorsman and inspired his peers to pain out-of-doors, en plein air, like the Impressionists a few decades earlier in France.

According to the Canadian Encyclopedia,the Group of Seven were "initially drawn together by a common sense of frustration with the conservative and imitative quality of most Canadian art. Romantic, with mystical leanings, the Group and their spokesmen zealously, and sometimes contentiously, presented themselves as Canada's national school of painters". The group was noted for their landscapes, although they painted a variety of subjects.

Inuit art has a long tradition that dates back centuries. Modern Inuit art, the Inuit art we are familiar "came into existence in 1948-49. The Inuit were encouraged to use their "natural talents" in creating art objects to help solve their economic problems" (Canadian Encyclopedia). Soapstone, ivory and serpentine carvings of animals are common subjects of the Inuit artists. They used natural mediums, mediums found locally, to depict local animals. Man's harmony with, and understanding of, his natural surroundings is evident in Inuit art.