A Y Jackson

Born in Montreal in 1882, A.Y. Jackson began his formal art studies in 1898 at Montreal’s Monument National then at the Art Association of Montreal. In 1913, Jackson met future Group of Seven members J.E.H. MacDonald and Arthur Lismer at the Arts and Letters Club in Toronto, and later, Lawren Harris. 

Thanks to patron Dr. James MacCallum, he was able to paint for a full year sharing studio space in 1914 with Tom Thomson.

Jackson saw action in World War I in 1915 before being assigned as an artist in 1917, to the Canadian War Memorials. In 1919, he participated in the first Group boxcar trip to Algoma. Jackson was a founding member of the Group of Seven and in 1933 its successor, the Canadian Group of Painters. Jackson spent his last years living in an apartment at the McMichael Canadian Collection at Kleinburg, where he died in 1974. He is buried there with 5 of the original Group of Seven members.