Wayne Larsen – författare

Presenting five titles in the Quest Biography series that profiles prominent figures in Canada’s history. The important Canadian lives detailed here are: firebrand Metis leader Louis Riel; landscape painter James Wilson Morrice; Arctic explorer and ethnologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson; revered novelist Robertson Davies; and the “Father of British Columbia,” James Douglas.

Presenting five titles in the Quest Biography series that profiles prominent figures in Canada’s history. The important Canadian lives detailed here are: nineteenth century railway builder William C. Van Horne; early nineteenth century governor and fur baron George Simpson; legendary Group of Seven-associated landscape painter Tom Thomson; intrepid early frontiersman Simon Girty; and Canada’s first world-famous movie star, Mary Pickford.

Presenting ten titles in the Quest Biography series that profiles prominent figures in Canada’s history. The important Canadian lives detailed here are: painters Tom Thomson and James Wilson Morrice; explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson; frontiersman Simon Girty; railway baron William C. Van Horne; early politicians George Simpson and James Douglas; revolutionary Metis leader Louis Riel; writer Robertson Davies; and early movie star Mary Pickford.

Tom Thomson (1877-1917) occupies a prominent position in Canada’s national culture and has become a celebrated icon for his magnificent landscapes as well as for his brief life and mysterious death. The shy, enigmatic artist and woodsman’s innovative painting style produced such seminal Canadian images as The Jack Pine and The West Wind, while his untimely drowning nearly a century ago is still a popular subject of fierce debate.

Originally a commercial artist, Thomson fell in love with the forests and lakes of Ontario’s Algonquin Park and devoted himself to rendering the north country’s changing seasons in a series of colourful sketches and canvases. Dividing his time between his beloved wilderness and a shack behind the Studio Building near downtown Toronto, Thomson was a major inspiration to his painter friends who, not long after his death, went on to change the course of Canadian art as the influential - and equally controversial - Group of Seven.

James Wilson Morrice (1865–1924) was a Canadian painter of extraordinary passion and simplicity whose canvases and oil sketches are valued throughout the world and cherished in Canada as our first real examples of modern art.

Though cut short by chronic alcohol abuse, Morrice’s restless bohemian life was spent in constant motion. From the colourful canals of Venice to the sun-drenched markets of North Africa to the snowy streets of Quebec City, he was, as his friend Henri Matisse described him, "always over hill and dale, a little like a migrating bird but without any very fixed landing place."

In James Wilson Morrice, Wayne Larsen chronicles the creative but often troubled life of this early cultural icon as he travels in search of the colours, compositions, and subtle effects of light that would inspire a revolution in Canadian art.

Alexander Young Jackson (1882-1974) is a name that instantly conjures up images of our rugged northern landscape and the controversial Group of Seven. This is the first-ever full-length biography of one of Canada’s most beloved characters, and the first to examine in one book the artist, outdoorsman, soldier, teacher, debater, writer, and outspoken defender of modern art. Jackson spent nearly seventy years travelling Canada on a lifelong quest to, rendering his impressions of its diverse character on canvas and promoting a vibrant, uniquely Canadian style of painting. From southern Alberta to Ellesmere Island, from Newfoundland to Northern British Columbia, he covered more ground than any other artist – scoffing at harsh weather and hostile criticism along the way. A.Y. Jackson takes readers on a journey through Jackson’s struggles and triumphs, from his childhood in Victorian-era Montreal through his final years as a living legend of Canadian art who thought nothing of camping in a tent on Baffin Island at age 82.