#2104 "Group of Seven"

There were initially four cows in my composition. They were moving around a lot as they grazed and not keeping a pose for more than a few seconds. An even number of subjects is not good so these same cows morphed into seven as they struck different poses. This group of seven cows were very much like the Group of Seven artists with their unique personalities. Frank or Franz Johnston was on the edge of the group and looking at me from the fence line. Franz left the group in 1926 just like this cow looking in from the outer edge. Frank grazed away to more distant pastures.

Technically, a cow is a bovine female that has borne offspring while cattle is the term for any number of bovines, regardless of sex. Cattle is a general term used for cows and bulls altogether.

Charley the cow came by and posed later. He became the subject of the very next painting #2105 "Curious Steer".

This was on the Port Elmsley Road just east of the Rideau Ferry Road intersection.

The original Group of Seven included Franklin Carmichael, Lawren Harris, A.Y. Jackson, Franz Johnston, Arthur Lismer, J.E.H. MacDonald and F.H. Varley. Tom Thomson, another commercial artist, was included in this circle of friends, but since he died in 1917, he never became a member of the Group. In 1926, after Franz Johnston's resignation, A.J. Casson was appointed a member. The Group realized they could hardly call themselves a national school of painters as long as they all lived in Toronto, so they admitted Edwin Holgate from Montréal in 1930 and L.L. FitzGerald from Winnipeg in 1932 to give the organization a wider geographic base.