CANADA HISTORY - Culture-Group of 7
Frank Varley
Frank Johnston Varley, known to history as Frederick Horsman Varley, stood at the crossroads of artistic vision and human experience. Born on January 2, 1881, in Sheffield, England, Varley was destined for a life that would see him become one of Canada’s most revered artists, even though his path would be marked by personal trials and relentless exploration. His early years in Sheffield were typical of a working-class family, and it was here that young Fred Varley first encountered art as a force capable of revealing deeper truths. His father, Samuel Varley, worked as a lithographer, and while this undoubtedly exposed Fred to the rudiments of drawing and technical precision, the young boy’s mind was drawn to a higher realm of artistic expression, to the intangible world of feeling and mood that could be rendered visible through brush and paint.
Varley’s natural talent became apparent early in his life, and after a series of formal lessons in Sheffield, he sought to expand his horizons by enrolling at the prestigious Sheffield School of Art. His time there helped him refine his abilities, and soon, Varley’s ambitions stretched far beyond the industrial city of his birth. In 1900, he moved to Antwerp to attend the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, an institution that offered him a firsthand encounter with European traditions of art. His time in Europe was transformative, not just in terms of his skill but also in his exposure to a wide range of artistic movements—Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and burgeoning modernism—that would shape his future vision.
Yet Varley, though rooted in European training, found his spiritual home not in the gilded halls of European academies but in the vast, untamed landscapes of Canada. In 1912, Varley immigrated to Toronto, a move that would set the stage for his involvement with a group of like-minded artists who would go on to alter the very course of Canadian art. Varley’s introduction to the burgeoning artistic community in Toronto came through his work as a commercial illustrator, where he met and developed friendships with artists like Arthur Lismer, a man who would later become one of his closest collaborators in the Group of Seven. It was in these early years in Canada, as Varley sought to establish himself, that his European training merged with the unique landscape of the New World.
When the Group of Seven was formally founded in 1920, Varley was among the most prominent of its members. His association with the group was defined by his commitment to capturing the Canadian landscape’s emotional and spiritual dimensions rather than merely its physical form. Unlike some of his counterparts, such as Lawren Harris or A.Y. Jackson, who focused exclusively on the grandeur and ruggedness of the wilderness, Varley was deeply attuned to the human experience within the landscape. His works often combined figures with natural settings, creating a balance between the inner and outer worlds that reflected his own philosophical leanings. Paintings like Stormy Weather, Georgian Bay revealed Varley’s mastery over light and atmosphere, his ability to evoke not just the sight but the feeling of the natural world.
Varley’s artistic journey, however, was not limited to landscape painting. During the First World War, he was appointed as an official war artist, a position that brought him face-to-face with the horrors of modern warfare. His war experience left a profound mark on his work, and Varley’s paintings from this period, such as For What? and The Sunken Road, stand as powerful testaments to the human cost of war. These were not merely battlefield scenes; they were meditations on loss, suffering, and the fragility of life. The war deepened Varley’s interest in the human figure, and in the years that followed, he would return to portraiture, often using his subjects as vehicles to explore deeper emotional and psychological states.
By the 1920s, Varley’s reputation as an artist was firmly established, yet his relationship with the Group of Seven was beginning to fray. Unlike his peers, who remained focused on landscape painting, Varley sought new avenues of expression. He was a restless spirit, drawn more and more to human subjects, and this divergence of interests ultimately led to his break from the group in 1926. However, it would be incorrect to see this departure as a failure. Rather, it was an indication of Varley’s refusal to be confined by a single artistic vision. He moved west, taking a teaching position at the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts, where he continued to experiment with new styles and techniques.
The years Varley spent in British Columbia were among the most productive of his career. The landscape of the West Coast—its rain-soaked forests, towering mountains, and mist-shrouded coastlines—provided fresh inspiration. Yet it was the people, the artists, and the intellectuals he encountered there that fueled his creative spirit. His portraiture flourished during this period, and works like Dharana and Vera displayed his extraordinary ability to capture the inner life of his subjects. Varley’s portraits were not simply likenesses; they were explorations of character, mood, and emotion. He brought a psychological depth to his subjects that set him apart from his contemporaries.
But Varley’s personal life was never as settled as his artistic career. Financial troubles and personal hardships followed him throughout his life, and despite his success, he often struggled to make ends meet. He was a complex figure, at once driven by his artistic passions and plagued by doubts and insecurities. His relationships, both personal and professional, were often strained, and his time in British Columbia ended in disappointment as financial instability forced him to return to Ontario in 1936.
Varley’s later years were marked by continued exploration and a return to the themes that had defined his earlier work. He continued to paint landscapes, but always with an eye toward the human experience within them. His travels to the Arctic in the 1930s allowed him to capture the stark beauty of the northern landscape, yet even here, it was the isolation and the resilience of the people that captivated him. Varley’s art during these years, while less publicized than his earlier works, displayed a maturity and depth that spoke to his lifelong quest for meaning through art.
In the final decades of his life, Varley settled in Toronto and then Kleinburg, where he remained active in the Canadian art community. He continued to teach, mentor younger artists, and exhibit his work. His legacy was cemented with the establishment of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, where his works were preserved alongside those of his fellow Group of Seven members. Yet even as he was celebrated as one of Canada’s great painters, Varley remained a restless soul, always searching for new ways to express the complexities of the world around him.
Frederick Varley died on September 8, 1969, leaving behind a body of work that spanned landscapes, portraits, and war scenes. His art was as varied and complex as the man himself, a reflection of a life lived in pursuit of deeper truths. In the annals of Canadian art history, Varley stands as a figure whose work transcended the limits of landscape painting to explore the depths of human experience. Through his art, he not only captured the beauty of the natural world but also the emotional and psychological realities that shape our existence within it. His legacy endures as a testament to his belief that art, at its best, is a bridge between the visible world and the unseen depths of the human soul.
