The Eastern Group of Painters was a group of

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

artists formed in 1938 in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

for exhibition purposes and showing together as a group till 1950. It included Montreal artists whose common interest was painting and an

art for art's sake Art for art's sake—the usual English rendering of ''l'art pour l'art'' (), a French slogan from the latter part of the 19th century—is a phrase that expresses the philosophy that the intrinsic value of art, and the only 'true' art, is divorce ...

aesthetic, not the espousal of a nationalist theory as was the case with the

Group of Seven The Group of Seven (G7) is an intergovernmental political forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States; additionally, the European Union (EU) is a "non-enumerated member". It is official ...

or the

Canadian Group of Painters The Canadian Group of Painters (CGP) was a collective of 28 painters from across Canada who came together as a group in 1933. Formation The Canadian Group of Painters succeeded the disbanded Group of Seven, whose paintings of the Canadian wilde ...

. The group's members included Alexander Bercovitch,

Goodridge Roberts William Goodridge Roberts (1904–1974) was a Canadian painter known for his landscape paintings, still lifes, figure paintings and interiors. He was also a teacher. Career Goodridge Roberts was the son of poet and novelist George Edward Theod ...

, Eric Goldberg, Jack Weldon Humphrey,

John Goodwin Lyman John Goodwin Lyman (September 29, 1886 – May 26, 1967) was an American-born Canadian modernist painter active largely in Montreal, Quebec. In the 1930s he did much to promote modern art in Canada, founding the Contemporary Art Society in 1939. ...

, and

Jori Smith Marjorie "Jori" Smith, (January 1, 1907 – November 25, 2005) was a key figure in the 1930s in initiating Canada's modernist art movement. She was a founding member of the Contemporary Arts Society in 1939. Biography Smith was born in Montreal, ...

. In 1939, Jack Humphrey was replaced by

Philip Surrey Philip Surrey LL. D. (1910-1990) was a Canadian artist known for his figurative scenes of Montreal. A founding member of the Contemporary Arts Society, and Montreal Men's Press Club (now Montreal Press Club), Surrey was part of Montreal’s cult ...

and Bercovitch resigned in 1942. The group showed their work first with W. Scott and Sons (1938),"The Eastern Group". Montreal Standard, Nov. 19, 1938, then at the

Art Association of Montreal The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA; french: Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, MBAM) is an art museum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the largest art museum in Canada by gallery space. The museum is located on the historic Golden Square ...

(1940), the Dominion Gallery (which represented Goldberg and Lyman) (1945), and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (1950).C. G. MacDonald, "Eastern Group art Displays Little New". Montreal Herald, Feb. 3, 1950 By the late 1930s, many Canadian artists began to resent the hegemony of

. The Eastern Group of Painters was formed, as member John Lyman wrote, "to restore the "feel" of life, the savour of things" to Canadian art. What concerned them was being simply painters, said the critic Robert Ayre. who spoke elsewhere of their honesty of purpose. The group had a serious concern with the art of painting and took pleasure in familiar life as a jumping-off place, wrote the same critic. It was an informal fellowship but the members had similarities of views on fundamentals such as an openness to European art. But by 1950 in a show at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the group, now considered a school, was seen to be "conservative with regard for tradition".Dick Hersey, Work of Eastern Group Colourful, Conservative, Montreal Standard, Jan. 28, 1950 It showed little that was new, said the Montreal Herald. John Lyman's Contemporary Arts Society (1939–48) (in French, ''Société d'art contemporain'') evolved from the Eastern Group of Painters.

References

{{Canadianart Eastern Group of Painters Eastern Group of Painters Arts organizations established in 1938 1938 establishments in Canada