Tom Thomson

Tom Thomson
Life & Work by David P. Silcox
About the Author
David P. Silcox
David P. Silcox has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in the arts, his positions
ranging from the first Senior Arts Officer of the Canada Council for the Arts and
Associate Dean, Faculty of Fine Art, York University, to federal Assistant Deputy
Minister of Communications (Culture) and Ontario Deputy Minister, Culture and
Communications. Most recently he was president of Sotheby’s Canada for twelve years.
He has also written major prize-winning books, including Painting Place: The Life and
Work of David B. Milne; The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson; and, with Harold
Town, the groundbreaking Tom Thomson: The Silence and the Storm. In addition, he is
the author of many articles and catalogues about Canadian art and artists.
Silcox has founded several important performing arts events in theatre, music,
dance, and the visual arts in Canada. He has served on the boards of more than thirty
cultural organizations, including the Stratford Festival, National Film Board, Toronto
International Film Festival, CFDC (now Telefilm Canada), Royal Conservatory of Music,
and Gardiner Museum.
Internationally, Silcox has served on the boards of Studio International, the
Americas Advisory Board of the Praemium Imperiale arts prize (Japan), and the
American Friends of Canada (now the Council for Canadian American Relations). He
organized a major Canadian exhibition for the Edinburgh International Festival, and is
chair of the Canadian Friends of Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, and a Trustee of the
Canada House Trust, London.
To honour his contribution to culture and the arts in Canada, Silcox has received
the Order of Canada, the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts, and
honorary doctorates from Victoria University in the University of Toronto and the
University of Windsor. He is also a long-standing Senior Fellow at Massey College and a
Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.
When I lived and worked at Hart
House at the University of
Toronto in the late 1950s and
early 1960s, I saw Tom
Thomson’s dazzling painting
The Pointers every day. Fred
Varley’s Magic Tree hung in my
office, and works by Lawren
Harris, A.Y. Jackson, and
Arthur Lismer in nearby
common rooms were constant
friends. Acquisitions took a
huge leap ahead in 1961–62,
when an undergraduate cabal I
supported sacked the
conservative Art Advisory
Committee and purchased
great works by Jock Macdonald
and Harold Town. Thomson and
his friends would have
cheered.
–
David Silcox
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