One of the country's top experts in historical Canadian art has weighed in on a mysterious sketch signed "Tom Thomson" – and says there is reason to believe it was indeed made by the iconic Canadian artist.
"My gut [feeling] is that it is a Thomson," says Dennis Reid, an art professor at the University of Toronto who was formerly with the Art Gallery of Ontario and National Gallery of Canada. He has curated Thomson exhibitions and written and edited publications about the artist.
The sketch, an 18.5- x 24-cm oil-on-paperboard, depicts a building in what some say appears to be a mountain setting. In addition to the signature in the lower right corner, a handwritten label on the back also identifies the artist as Tom Thomson. It comes from a large Italian collection and has come to be known lately as "the Italian Tom." It was recently purchased by an American art dealer and is on loan to the Tom Thomson Art Gallery in Owen Sound, Ont.
A possible Tom Thomson sketch being referred to as ‘the Italian Tom.’ Some experts believe it depicts Mowat Lodge in Algonquin Park. It has also been interpreted as an alpine scene.
It surfaced after the dealer, when he was contemplating buying the sketch, contacted Ritchies in Toronto about having the work authenticated. Cameron Thomas, who was then manager of estate contents for the auctioneer, did months of research into the work and received an encouraging report from the Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI). But he ultimately declined to offer a definitive opinion, saying his investigation had reached a dead end. (Thomas is no longer with Ritchies, but still keeps tabs on the sketch.)
But others continued the authentication effort, including Tim Bouma. A different kind of Thomson expert, Bouma is an obsessive who is responsible for the Tom Thomson Last Spring blog and Twitter feed. The federal civil servant turned amateur Thomson sleuth believes the mysterious sketch depicts not a villa in the mountains but Mowat Lodge in Algonquin Park, where Thomson often painted.
He brought his theory – and the sketch – to Virginia Eichhorn, director and chief curator of the Thomson gallery in Owen Sound, known as the TOM, whose response was very positive. Bouma also took the sketch back to the National Gallery in Ottawa to show it to Charles Hill, who had seen it before and dismissed it. Hill's response the second time was less decisive – but certainly not conclusive. "Prove to me that it is by Thomson," is how Hill puts it now.
In late September, Eichhorn brought it to Toronto so Reid could examine it.
The day before, Reid spent time comparing a copy of the mystery sketch with the known Thomsons at the AGO. He was encouraged by what he saw.
"I know Charlie [Hill] has remarked that he thought that the way the trees in the upper left corner are handled wasn't right – it bothered him somehow," Reid says. "I found a couple of sketches in which it was exactly the same kind of handling. The same sort of strange salad toss of elements and different kinds of strokes and squiggles and so on, and the same pigments – that unusual sort of black and brownish-red and blue and green all mixed in." The examples Reid cites include Thomson's Georgian Bay Inlet, June 1914; The Artist's Camp, Canoe Lake, Algonquin Park, c. 1915; and Northern Spring, spring 1916.
"That helped me a lot just in terms of when I actually saw the painting, then feeling pretty strongly that it's Thomson's hand," Reid adds.
Reid's analysis was a key element in the U.S. dealer's decision to purchase the painting. "His opinion weighed in very heavily and very positively on the painting, and that was the link we were waiting for," says Thom Gianetto, a private dealer in Spokane, Wash.
But Reid is quick to add he can't say definitively that he believes it is an authentic Thomson without clearing up some of the mystery around the sketch's provenance and location.
"I think it's extremely important to understand that provenance and I think it's extremely important to figure out what it's a picture of – where it was painted. With those two things sort of being up in the air still, it always raises questions. But I felt very strongly just stylistically and from the signature and so on that it's Thomson's work," Reid says.
As for where it was painted, was it Algonquin Park, as Bouma believes? Or an alpine landscape, as it appears to Hill? Perhaps it's Banff, considering Thomson's travel between Ontario and Seattle. Another key question is how the sketch wound up in Italy.
"We know Tom gave works away, [or] he sold them as souvenirs," Eichhorn says. "We don't know where all of the pieces have ended up. And a small, easily transportable painting could end up just about anywhere. It is not impossible that one or more may have eventually made its way to Italy, Sweden or Timbuktu before someone started to investigate who the possible artist was."
Eichhorn, who briefly displayed the work at the Thomson gallery in October, adds that while having a painting with documentation and clear line of custody and provenance always makes people more comfortable, "the reality is that life is messy – everything isn't documented the way that we would really love it to be documented."
She adds that there are gaps in the provenance of many paintings. "This is where it is really important for fulsome research combined with the scientific investigation, and for a number of different eyes to see the pieces in real life before being able to make that authentication or not."
A sketch from the same Italian collection as ‘the Italian Tom’ with similar attributes.
Eichhorn says "pieces" because the sketch has unearthed two additional promising works. One is from that same Italian collection. Bouma believes that second sketch shows the same subject in the same location – but from a different vantage point. Reid points out that the second sketch from Italy has a very similar palette and handling – and believes it is "very clearly" Mowat Lodge. Gianetto is having it sent over and, upon inspection, plans to purchase this piece as well.
The third work of note is owned by a Canadian living in Britain. The 10- x 14-cm oil on paperboard is most definitely a mountain scene – possibly Hector Lake in Banff National Park. The owner e-mailed images to Reid, and his response was very positive – contingent on him seeing the painting in person and learning more about its provenance.
Reid also instructed the owner, who has asked to remain anonymous, to have it scientifically analyzed. Using CCI criteria under Reid's instruction, she did so. Everything was fine, she says. For instance, there was nothing in the painting to indicate a later date.
This sketch, owned by a Canadian living in Britain who believes it is a Tom Thomson work, has been received encouragingly from Thomson expert Dennis Reid.
That sketch is now at the TOM, where it will be installed with the so-called Italian Tom – which is currently being cleaned and will then be framed in California. The cleaning may lead to more revelations.
The display will document the investigation and various opinions; it will be part of the "Bring Tom Home" campaign to encourage owners of Thomson works to consider donating them to the TOM and raise funds for a new facility. Eichhorn says it's an opportunity to educate the public about the complexities of the authentication process and the mix of "science, sleuthing and connoisseurship" that play a role. She has had other people come forward with works they argue are authentic – but were painted after 1917 or were signed "Tom Thompson." Thomson died mysteriously in 1917.
The first sketch has already generated a fair bit of buzz, Eichhorn reports.
"After your last article, we were getting dozens and dozens of e-mails and phone calls from people all believing they've got a Tom Thomson," she told me.
"It's okay, that happens," she continued, after I apologized for increasing her workload. "It gets people talking about art, talking about Canadian art, being excited about it – and that's never a bad thing."