A stunning new edition of the Canadian classic with never-before-seen paintings

First published in 1977 to commemorate the centenary of the birth of a Canadian painter whose brief, brilliant life, and untimely death in a mysterious canoe accident, gained him mythic status in his homeland, Tom Thomson: The Silence and the Storm quickly attained legendary status in its own right. This newly designed and expanded edition revives a classic and adds more than 25 never-before-seen paintings and a new introduction. Co-authors Harold Town, a founder of the Painters Eleven and an icon of Canadian art himself, and art historian David P. Silcox, former head of Sotheby's Canadian division, celebrate this early associate of the Group of Seven as a key creative figure without falling into the trap of cultural jingoism. Thomson, the authors maintain, was an inspired regional painter—in the best sense of that term—who stumbled upon the bold Expressionist palette pioneered by Matisse and his contemporaries despite working from a provincial backwater.

Thomson's finest works are reproduced here in painstakingly colour-matched plates, including more than 80 of Thomson's famous oil sketches in exactly their original size.

David P. Silcox is the bestselling author of The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson, as well as an art historian and a cultural administrator. Former President of Sotheby’s Canada, he is a Senior Fellow at Massey College, University of Toronto. He served as Associate Dean and Professor, Faculty of Fine Arts, York University, and has served on the boards of over thirty cultural and educational organizations across Canada and abroad. Silcox is known for his extensive writings on Canadian artists, including David Milne, Emily Carr, Christopher Pratt, Jack Bush, the Group of Seven and Iain Baxter.

Harold Town (1924–1990) was the pre-eminent artist of his generation in Toronto. With Oscar Cahén and Walter Yarwood, he was a founding member of Painters Eleven. His work is in the collections of major museums across Canada and in the Tate Gallery, Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim Museum, Metropolitan Museum in New York and Hirschhorn Museum in Washington, DC. He represented Canada often in world art fairs, including Documenta, Brussells World Fair, Venice Biennale (three times) and other prestigious international venues. Town also wrote several books, reviewed many art books, wrote many provocative magazine articles and had a regular column in Toronto Life.

David Silcox's profile page

Harold Town's profile page