The 1920s (Page 2)

The McGill News Supplement, which ran from 1926-1930, included articles on Canadian matters ranging from the arts to the economy and from forestry to farming. One piece by Lawren Harris, a member of the Group of Seven, discussed the opposition engendered by kicking over the traces of established artistic traditions and working to establish a purely Canadian body of work. His article prompted the News to reprint criticisms published in Vancouver papers of an exhibit of paintings by the Group:

• Even the unsophisticated west could see that it had got a nasty blow in the untutored eye when it was asked to look at the monstrosities purveyed by the Group of Seven.

• I certainly feel that some of these painters would not be nice men to know. I should say that men with such 'moods' need medical treatment right away.

• The Group of Seven paints a head cheese and calls it "Sunset Behind the Old Mill."

• I sat down before a group of freaks -- I cannot call them pictures, the most puerile in composition, grotesque in colour and drawing, and violating every law of chiaroscuro and perspective.