A Globe 100 Book of the Year for 2010 and shortlisted for the 2011 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction.

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, Franklin Carmichael, Lawren Harris, A. Y. Jackson, Franz Johnston, Arthur Lismer, J. E. H. MacDonald, and Frederick Varley, 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. Inspired by Cezanne, Van Gogh and other modernist artists, they tried to interpret the Ontario landscape in light of the strategies of the international avant-garde. Based after 1914 in the purpose-built Studio Building for Canadian Art, the young artists embarked on what Lawren Harris called "an all-engrossing adventure": travelling north into the anadian Shield and forging a style of painting appropriate to what they regarded as the unique features of Canada's northern landscape.

 

Sumptuously illustrated, rigorously researched and drawn from archival documents and letters, Defiant Spirits constitutes a "group biography," reconstructing the men's aspirations, frustrations and achievements. It details not only the lives of Tom Thomson and the members of the Group of Seven but also the political and social history of Canada during a time when art exhibitions were venues for debates about Canadian national identity and cultural worth.

Ross King, born in Estevan, Saskatchewan, is the Canadian author of three books on Italian history and Art: Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling, Machiavelli: Philosopher of Power and Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture, which won the 2001 Book Sense Book of the Year Award for Adult Nonfiction. His study of French Impressionism, The Judgment of Paris, won the Governor General's Award for Non-Fiction in Canada. He lives in England, near Oxford.

Ross King's profile page

• Short-listed, CAA Lela Common Awards for Canadian History
• Winner, Heritage Toronto Awards
• Short-listed, Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction
• Short-listed, Writers' Trust of Canada Non-Fiction Prize

"It's to dispel the myth of [uncultured artists] that Ross King has risen to the challenge of writing yet another book on the gang. It is a real collective biography, focusing on the personalities of the painters, their influences and the swirling currents of nationalism, theosophy and Whitmanesque transcendentalism they were caught up in."

Toronto Star

"[Defiant Spirits] is a paradigm shift. With his usual spirited prose and faultless research, King makes internationalists out of the Group of Seven, showing them responding and reacting to the art of their day and the socio-political upheavals brought about by the First World War. These were ambitious artists and King never lets them settle into the comforts of cottage life and Canadiana."

Canadian Art

"King's book functions spectacularly, both as compelling biography and (more importantly) as internationally contextualized art history, and the thoroughness and quality of its research are sure to make it a standard reference work for students (of all stripes) of Thomson and the Group."

Canadian Literature

"With Defiant Spirits, King, as in his other biographical art histories, takes on big subjects, big personalities and big events and weaves them into a concise, entertaining narrative. He is a master researcher and biographer and this book serves as an informative introduction to an important era in Canadian art history."

Telegraph Journal

"Biographer and historian King traces the roots of Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven back to 1912, when their exposure to the works of Cezanne, van Gogh and other European modernist artists combined with their love of the Canadian wilderness to create a new and totally Canadian style."

Globe & Mail

"In Defiant Spirits, King gets at much more than what the Group of Seven painted; he discloses who the men were and brings them to life."

Eye Weekly

"King, an admirably industrious researcher and deft writer, already much admired for his books on the Renaissance, splendidly braids together the lives of eight painters, the seven members of the Group and Tom Thomson. His skill and intelligence make Defiant Spirits an essential addition to any library of Canadian art history."

National Post

"King's book does an excellent job of exploring the roles of these visionary individuals in the shaping of an artistic cultural identity."

Publishers Weekly

"If Ross King were a geologist, he'd have made millions striking untapped rivulets of gold or oil in overlooked places. Instead, as an art historian, he mines nuggets of obscure information that he forges into page-turners about Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, Manet and, in this new book, the Group of Seven."

Montreal Gazette

"King's writing is characterized by clarity, compassion, and humanist intelligence...The personal, political, and aesthetic obstacles they encountered are described here with sympathy, so that we feel we've actually met these individuals -- the goal of any good biography."

Library Journal

"Ross King's Defiant Spirits not only situates Tom Thompson, A.Y. Jackson, et al in their historical contexts, it also conveys their emerging artistic sensibilities and their desire to create an authentic Canadian art, even in the face of institutional hostility."

Quill & Quire