J E H Macdonald Designer

The design work of Group of Seven painter J.E.H. MacDonald was not only central to his personal artistic development, but inseparable from the graphic design industry in Toronto from the 1890s to the 1930s: the "golden age" of book and magazine illustration. This connection has been largely overshadowed by his painting. Now this splendid book, tracing MacDonald's involvement with fine printing, book design and commercial art, raises the profile of graphic design as a formative influence in Canadian visual culture.

Annotation "Though better known as a brilliant landscape painter, J. E. H. MacDonald (1873-1932) was arguably Canada's first professional graphic designer, as we understand that term today - and one of the most versatile and gifted this country has produced. Heavily influenced by such leaders of the international Arts and Crafts movement as William Morris, Walter Crane and John Ruskin and their major Canadian disciples, A. H. Howard, Robert Holmes and G. A. Reid, MacDonald carved out an original path for himself by incorporating native Canadian elements into his designs for books, magazine illustrations, bookplates, lettering, armorial bearings, illuminated presentation addresses, wall-plaques and signs, word-marks, and a host of other applications." "As senior designer at Toronto's prestigious Grip Ltd., MacDonald presided over the talented studio of artists who, meeting regularly at the Arts and Letters Club, banded together in 1920 as the Group of Seven. Although he quit Grip in 1912 to paint full-time, and later taught at the Ontario College of Art, MacDonald was a working designer until his premature death in 1932. His credo in life as well as in graphic and decorative art was "The Harmony of Means and Purpose." J. E. H. MacDonald: Designer offers a representative selection of his applied art work in all media save mural painting, at which he also excelled."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The work of Thoreau MacDonald as a designer and illustration.

"I got to the beautiful Lake O'Hara lying in a rainbow sleep, under the steeps of Mount Lefroy and the waterfalls of Oesa. And there I realized some of the blessedness of mortals." - J.E.H. MacDonald in A Glimpse of the West, 1924 In the autumn of 1924, the Canadian landscape artist James Edward Hervey (J.E.H.) MacDonald went on a painting holiday. His destination was the tiny region of Lake O'Hara in Yoho National Park, British Columbia. Looking for new scenery, some solitude, and a change of pace, he was also looking for a broader view of the country that he and his fellow members of the Group of Seven had lauded in a nationalist plea for homegrown Canadian art. The Lake O'Hara Art of J.E.H. MacDonald and Hiker's Guide is Lisa Christensen's third exploration of the work of artists in the mountains of western Canada. Filled with full-colour reproductions of many famous images, this book takes you on an inspirational journey of this world heritage site, seen through the eyes of one of Canada's most loved painters takes. The award-winning trail guide format, accompanied by a number-keyed map, brings you to the exact locations where he worked. Follow in the footsteps of J.E.H. MacDonald and explore artists mecca of Lake O'Hara.

Beginning in 1912, Defiant Spirits traces the artistic development of Tom Thomson and the future members of the Group of Seven, Franklin Carmichael, Lawren Harris, A. Y. Jackson, Franz Johnston, Arthur Lismer, J. E. H. MacDonald, and Frederick Varley, over a dozen years in Canadian history. Working in an eclectic and sometimes controversial blend of modernist styles, they produced what an English critic celebrated in the 1920s as the “most vital group of paintings” of the 20th century. Inspired by Cézanne, Van Gogh and other modernist artists, they tried to interpret the Ontario landscape in light of the strategies of the international avant-garde. Based after 1914 in the purpose-built Studio Building for Canadian Art, the young artists embarked on what Lawren Harris called “an all-engrossing adventure”: travelling north into the anadian Shield and forging a style of painting appropriate to what they regarded as the unique features of Canada’s northern landscape. Rigorously researched and drawn from archival documents and letters, Defiant Spirits constitutes a “group biography,” reconstructing the men’s aspirations, frustrations and achievements. It details not only the lives of Tom Thomson and the members of the Group of Seven but also the political and social history of Canada

Published to accompany exhibition organized by Dulwich Picture Gallery and the National Gallery of Canada, in collaboration with the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, and the Groninger Museum.