Defiant Spirits: The Modernist Revolution of the Group of Seven

A Governor General’s Award–winning author recounts the turbulent years during which a group of young Canadian painters went from obscurity to international renown. Beginning in 1912, Defiant Spirits traces the artistic development of Tom Thomson and the future members of the Group of Seven, over a dozen years in Canadian history. Working in an eclectic and sometimes controversial blend of modernist styles, they produced what an English critic celebrated in the 1920s as the “most vital group of paintings” of the 20th century.