Franklin Carmichael
1890 - 1945
Some of the finest of Carmichael's work is the countryside and rural buildings around his hometown. Like A.J. Casson, Carmichael documented our rural Ontario and its architecture. A member of the Group of Seven, his early period works use a rich paint impasto, glowing with colour. Carmichael loved the natural pattern that he discovered within nature, reflecting this love in his many works. Today these works still stand out as icons of Canadian art, placing him among Canada's finest painters, both in the medium of oils and also water colours.
Carmichael's artistic talent was evident at an early age. As a teenager ,growing up in Orillia , On, he worked in his father's shop as a carriage striper. He practiced his design , drawing and colouring skills as he worked on the scrolled decorations of the carriages. Carmichael went to Toronto in 1911 and hired as an office boy at the Grip Ltd. The head designer was J.E.H. Macdonald , one of the most distinguished men in his field at the time and a founding member of th eGroup of Seven .
Although sketching in many locales around Ontario, including Georgian Bay and the North Shore of Lake Superior, the La Cloche Hills, the site of the family cottage, became a favourite painting location.Primarily a watercolourist, Carmichael was the youngest member of the original Group of Seven.
Franklin Carmichael, born at Orillia, Ontario. Went to Toronto in 1911 and studied at the Ontario College of Art with William Cruikshank and G.A. Reid and at the Toronto Technical School with Gustav Hahn; also at the Antwerp Academy (1913). Original member of the Group of Seven, 1920, and of the Canadian Group of Painters, 1933. A.R.C.A. in 1935, R.C.A. in 1938. Worked for a time at commercial art, then taught at the Ontario College of Art (1932 - 45). Died in Toronto.
