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“The most important thing a painter can do is find a good place to sit.”
- J.E.H. MacDonald
TAKE YOUR SEAT WITH THE GROUP OF SEVEN
We invite you to experience the photographic journey of our director’s chair to Lake Superior’s North Shore.
The very nature that inspired The Group of Seven’s excursions to the region between 1921 and 1928, now inspires us. As a symbol of our ability to choose, TAKE YOUR SEAT’s director's chair invites you to wander alongside Canada’s most famous painters while reminding us that we each play a part to ensure their muse inspires generations to come.
Presented by Brookfield Place, with thanks to the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.
Welcome: Welcome
Welcome: Welcome
‘A picture can become for us a highway between a particular thing and a universal feeling.’
- Lawren S. Harris
Carden Cove
The North Shore of Lake Superior serves as Nature’s rugged canvas. Pine trees tenaciously cling to rocky cliffs. The waters of the greatest of Great Lakes scatter fallen trunks like toothpicks out of an open box. Yet each element is in sync with its neighbours. The combination creates a symmetry that finds our camera wanting more.
Follow the chair around the world
Standing here, we begin to comprehend A.Y. Jackson’s masterful use of alizarin crimson and cerulean blue, his harmony of viridian, cadmium yellow and vermillion.
Jack Pines Outlook
Standing here, we begin to comprehend A.Y. Jackson’s masterful use of alizarin crimson and cerulean blue, his harmony of viridian, cadmium yellow and vermillion. We now marvel at how a brush could do justice to Nature’s own artistry.
Path to Coldwell Harbour
There are no right or wrong paths in Nature. Each takes you on a journey that thinks little of how quickly one can reach a finish line. A meandering walk through a forest, a trek through a sunswept meadow, each transports us beyond a destination.
Peninsula Harbour
A sunset is extraordinarily an everyday occurrence. Here, atop a blanket of lichen and an unfettered vista, we now appreciate how spectacular the everyday can be.
Coldwell Harbour
We head inland welcomed by a forest eager to make our acquaintance. Meandering over rock and moss, the trail winds its way skyward. Lichen clings to ancient branches. Moss weaves a verdant carpet before us. As the trail ends and the vista beckons, we begin to understand how Lismer and Harris must have felt as their gazes followed the same horizon, scanned the same tree line and considered the same sky and water.
Pic Island
Eons have passed quietly, unseen by human eyes. Pic Island patiently waited to announce her presence to the first Indigenous people who ascended Signal Hill or rounded a final revealing bend as they paddled along the undulating shores of Lake Superior. We now have the privilege to marvel as well.
Group of Seven Paintings,
TYS Photography locations,
and connecting trails
Follow the chair around the world
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