James Edward Hervey MacDonald was a British born Canadian painter. He worked for a Commercial design firm in Toronto when he met future Group of Seven painter Tom Thompson and others, encouraging to pursue their craft in painting.
In 1911, he resigned from his job and moved to Thornhill, Ontario and began pursuing his own painting career focusing on Landscapes. He and Lawrence Harris held a joint exhibition and encouraged each other to show their work as much as possible.
MacDonald co-founded the Group of Seven – these artists dedicated themselves to promoting distinct Canadian art with direct contact with Canadian Landscapes.
Apparently critics during his time were very challenged by his use of colour and they didn’t feel that he was a legitimate artist. But today it has been said that “no Canadian landscape painter possessed a richer command of colour and pigment than J. E. H. MacDonald … His brushwork is at once disciplined and vigorous. His best on-the-spot sketches possess an intensity and freshness of execution not dissimilar from Van Gogh.”
I really enjoyed putting this puzzle together, it was definitely hard but it wasn’t impossible and getting to examine the details up close, as always, gave me a huge appreciation for this painting! I found this at Value Village a few months ago, it’s a beautiful Pomegranate puzzle, 1000 pieces and complete, thank goodness!
thepuzzlesivedone 