Thomas John Thomson was a Canadian artist of the early 20th century. Over the course of his short career, he produced roughly 400 oil sketches on small wood panels along with around fifty larger works on canvas. They consist almost entirely of landscapes, depicting trees, skies, lakes, rivers and other nature scenes. His painting utilizes broad brush strokes and a liberal application of paint to capture the stark beauty and vibrant colour of the Ontario landscape. Thomson's accidental death at 39 by drowning came just prior to the founding of the Group of Seven and was seen by his contemporaries as a tragedy of Canadian art.
Raised in rural Ontario, Thomson was born into a large family of farmers and did not display any immediate artistic talent. He worked several jobs through family connections before attending a business college, eventually developing rudimentary penmanship abilities. At the turn of the 20th century, he worked in Seattle and Toronto as a pen artist at several different photoengraving firms, including Grip Ltd.. There, he met those who would eventually form the Group of Seven, including J. E. H. MacDonald, Lawren Harris, Frederick Varley, Franklin Carmichael and Arthur Lismer. In May 1912, Thomson visited Algonquin Park for the first time. It was there that he acquired his first sketching equipment and, following the advice of MacDonald, began to capture nature scenes. He became enraptured with the area and would consistently return, typically spending his winters in Toronto and the rest of the year in the Park. While his earliest paintings were not outstanding technically, they illustrated an above average ability regarding composition and colour handling. Through his development his later paintings vary in composition and have vivid colours and thickly applied paint. Thomson's later work has had a great influence on Canadian art—paintings such as The Jack Pine and The West Wind have taken a prominent place in the culture of Canada and are some of the country's most iconic pieces of art.
Thomson developed a reputation during his lifetime as a veritable outdoorsman, talented in both fishing and canoeing, though his talents in the latter have been contested. The tragic circumstances of Thomson's drowning on Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park linked with his image as a master canoeist has resulted in his death entering into the popular imagination. The circumstances surrounding his death have been of particular interest to many, with unsubstantiated rumours that he was murdered or committed suicide becoming common and persisting in the years since his death.
Though he died before the formal establishment of the Group of Seven, Thomson is often considered an unofficial member with his art typically being exhibited with the rest of the Group's. Nearly all of Thomson's work is located in Canada, mainly at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg and the Tom Thomson Art Gallery in Owen Sound.
Thomas John "Tom" Thomson was born on August 5, 1877 in Claremont, Ontario, Canada. He grew up in a large family, the sixth of John and Margaret Thomson's ten children. Thomson was raised in Leith, Ontario, near Owen Sound, in the Municipality of Meaford. Thomson and his siblings enjoyed both drawing and painting, though he did not immediately display any major talents. He was eventually taken out of school for a year due to ill health, sometimes said to a respiratory issue variously described as "weak lungs" or "inflammatory rheumatism." This gave him free time to explore the woods near his home and develop an appreciation for nature. The Thomson family were unsuccessful as farmers, with Thomson and his father often abandoning their chores to instead go hiking, hunting and fishing. Thomson would also regularly go on walks with Dr. William Brodie (1831–1909), his grandmother's first cousin (though the Thomson family referred to him simply as "uncle"). Brodie was a well known entomologist, ornithologist and botanist, and Thomson's sister Margaret would later recount that they collected specimens on long walks together. Thomson was also enthusiastic about sports, breaking his toe at one point while playing football. He was an excellent swimmer and fisherman, developing his passion for the latter from his grandfather and father. Like most of those in his community, he regularly attended church. Some stories say that he would sketch in the hymn books during services and would entertain his sisters with caricatures of their neighbours. His sisters would later say that they had fun "guessing who they were," indicating that he was not necessarily adept at capturing people's likeness.
All of Thomson's nine siblings received an inheritance from their paternal grandfather. Thomson would receive his in 1898 getting $2000 in total, though he seems to have spent it all relatively quickly. A year later, he entered a machine shop apprenticeship at an iron foundry owned by William Kennedy, a close friend of his father, but left only eight months later. Also in 1899, he volunteered to fight in the Second Boer War, but was turned down because of a medical condition. He would attempt to enlist for the Boer War three times total, but was denied each time.

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