The work of Frederick Varley, one of the Group of Seven who at one point resided in Lynn Valley , can now be viewed in stunning detail as part of a new digital collection.
The McMichael Canadian Art Collection, in partnership with Google Arts & Culture, has released an online collection of Canadian art, including pieces from Canada’s Group of Seven, it was announced earlier this week.
The McMichael Canadian Art Collection, based in Ontario, is a publicly funded art gallery that focuses exclusively on both historical and contemporary Canadian and Indigenous art.
The permanent collection consists of more than 6,500 artworks by Tom Thomson, the Group of Seven, their contemporaries, and First Nations, Métis, Inuit and contemporary artists, according to the gallery’s website.
As part of the new digital collection, viewers will be able to see Varley classics, such as Early Morning, Sphinx Mountain and Night Ferry, Vancouver, which the renowned painter created in the 1920s and ’30s.
Viewers will be able to zoom in to individual sections of the paintings rendered in high-definition detail.
Many Group of Seven artists became renowned for their depictions of Canada’s rugged wilderness.
Varley was already making headlines earlier this year after the North Vancouver home where he lived for a period in the early ’30s and created a number of his most famous works sold for more than $1 million.
Varley rented the house, tucked into the forest near Lynn Canyon, for $8 a month during the Great Depression.
The McMichael digital collection was incorporated into the Google Arts & Culture initiative, an online platform which aims to allow the public to view high-resolution images and videos of artworks from partner organizations around the world.
