In my backyard, there’s a birdbath, some unraked leaves, and a major art gallery.
Naturally, since the art gallery is so close, it took me six months to get there. It’s like living in Toronto and seeing the CN Tower every day but never going up the darned thing. “Bah,” you think, time and again. “Next week. It’s not going anywhere.”
The McMichael Canadian Art Collection isn’t going anywhere, either. But I am. I’m moving to Victoria in two weeks. So I finally roused myself out of this geographic complacency and introduced myself to my esteemed neighbour.
The McMichael is tucked away in Kleinburg, Ontario, a small town that’s about 45km north of Toronto. At first, it seems like a curious location for a first-rate art gallery, but once you get the back story it all falls into place like a perfectly-executed game of Tetris. Like when you’ve waited for a long piece forEVAH. You’re building, building, fearing another cube, but – o happy day – the long piece comes at the last minute, and you still have time to flip it into that crucial vertical position…….god, I love Tetris. And I really need to shut up about it before I lose every art connoisseur that has strayed onto my blog.
The gallery started as a private home, you see; a hideaway on a 10-acre plot of land amidst the Canadian wilderness (back when the now-omnipresent Wal Marts and Kelseys were just a twinkle in a young capitalist’s eye). Robert and Signe McMichael built their pioneer-style home in 1952 and soon thereafter began collecting works by The Group of Seven. Thank god Wal Mart art wasn’t an option, otherwise we might have a museum full of black-and-white stock photos of Paris! 
As the collection grew, so did the requests to see it. The McMichaels graciously opened their home to strangers who flocked to admire the works of Franklin Carmichael, Lawren Harris, A.Y. Jackson, Frank Johnston, Arthur Lismer, J.E.H. MacDonald and Frederick Varley. They also collected works by Tom Thomson, who died before the official formation of The Group of Seven.
By 1965, the interest was so great that the McMichaels decided to donate their home, the land and the entire collection to the Province of Ontario. The McMichael Collection of Canadian Art was born.
And in 1971, this picture was taken on the occasion of A.Y. Jackson’s 89th birthday. Second from right in the row of mini-skirted ladies is my mom, Jaynie (with the Superman curl). She worked at the gallery for a number of years in the early ’70s – another reason why I couldn’t possibly leave Kleinburg without paying a visit. I’ve been hearing about this place my entire life!
It’s funny, too – I think I can see where my mom got the inspiration for our first house. The gallery is built of fieldstone and hand-hewn logs, it’s very comfortable in its forested surroundings. Our house had cedar-paneled walls, green shag carpet (a la grass) and a fireplace with rocks just like these.
We also had some Group of Seven paintings hanging around (not originals, though she could have nabbed one before she left, like people sometimes steal office supplies upon departure). The tangled, wild and sometimes wintry landscapes were quite familiar.
These guys, who painted from 1920 to 1933, where absolutely smitten with the Canadian landscape. Much more so than I am, I’m afraid. Where I see unbearable solitude and barren trees, they saw incomparable beauty that they were compelled to capture on their canvases. They rushed up to Northern Ontario, canoeing out into the vast wilderness, gaga for the twisted underbrush and swirling clouds.
While I’m not the biggest fan of the paintings, I’m very taken with the artistic process. So, in a way, I was more intrigued by the write-ups about the artists’ lives than the works themselves.
One exception: Emily Carr. I do rather like her bold, exciting landscapes and the McMichael owns an impressive Emily Carr collection. There are also a lot of First Nations and Inuit works in the gallery.
Galleries all over the world are stepping it up lately with great in-house restaurants and I was delighted to discover that the McMichael is right on trend. No crappy cafeteria sponsored by Jell-o here – it’s a full service restaurant called “Seven” with a simple but elegant menu and Ontario wines.
Even the soup was a work of Canadian art.
The gallery doesn’t end when you exit the front doors. There’s a statue garden that would terrify anyone by moonlight – even Indiana Jones. There are also miles upon miles of walking paths right on the McMichael’s doorstep.
Finally, The Group of Seven left a lot more than their art at the McMichael. Six of the artists are buried right there on site, their gravestones rocks that could easily have appeared in their paintings, their vault the trees they admired so.
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