Famed landscape painter’s origins traced back to Concordia campus
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Concordia journalism professor Wayne Larsen did exhaustive research on the most famed of Canada’s Group of Seven landscape painters PHOTO ALAN MACQUARRIE
One of Concordia’s own faculty is climbing the bestseller list with a new biography about the life of A.Y. Jackson, a member of Canada’s famed 19th-century Group of Seven landscape painters.
A.Y Jackson: The Life of a Landscape Painter offers readers a vibrant portrait of one of Canada’s most famous artists.
“Jackson was always the most interesting member of the Group,” said Wayne Larsen, a journalism professor and editor of The Westmount Examiner, who is himself a landscape artist. “He never owned a car, never married and lived a frugal lifestyle that was designed to serve one purpose: his painting.”
At the Oct. 8 book launch, held at Nicholas Hoare bookstore on Greene Avenue, the Concordia community rubbed elbows with Westmount’s finest—both the outgoing and incoming mayor were in attendance—to celebrate Larsen’s latest book.
“I could never understand why there was never a full biography of Jackson, but now I know,” said Larsen. “It was a huge undertaking and no one else ever wanted to tackle it.”
To write the complete story of Jackson’s life, Larsen went over a large amount of previously unpublished material with the help of his wife, art historian Darlene Cousins. They pored through many of Jackson’s personal letters and family photos, along with interviews with people who were close to him and colour photography of his art from private collections.
The resulting book is a feast for the eyes and an intimate look at Jackson’s life, detailing how the maverick outdoorsman rose from an impoverished childhood to become the de facto leader of the Group of Seven. The art contained in the book is a portrait of Canada, from rural Quebec communities to Newfoundland, British Columbia and the Arctic.
In the course of his research, Larsen tracked down Jackson’s birthplace on Mackay Street, a stone’s throw from Concordia’s Sir George Williams campus. Larsen said that most of Jackson’s early life had never been documented prior to his book.
One of the best parts about writing the book was doing hands-on research, said Larsen, which resulted in humorous findings.
“I remember laughing out loud when I saw [Jackson’s] old army enlistment papers from World War One,” said Larsen. “Most kids lied to make themselves older in order to enlist, he lied to make himself younger.”
Jackson’s forceful personality informs each of the canvases reproduced in the book, giving them new meaning.
As of Oct. 10, the book was already at number two on The Globe and Mail’s bestseller list in the art section, second only to Kat Von D’s High Voltage Tattoo.
A.Y. Jackson: The Life of a Landscape Painter
Wayne Larsen
Dundurn Press
280 pp
$60.00
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