A catalogue Tom Thomson’s work produced as part of an exhibition organised by the National gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Toronto in 2002/2003. The first part of the book is taken up with six comprehensive essays, illustrated throughout, which between them map Tom Thomson’s development as a person and an artist, what influenced him, his travels, and the techniques he employed to produce his work. Following the colour plates is a section of Thomson’s letters, and illustrated chronology, extensive notes pertaining to the essays, a very extensive bibliography and an exhibition history.

The plates occupy pages 153 to 297; the images are reproduced singling on the page along with the paintings title, date, medium, size, and source. While visually beautifully presented, they are generally small relative to the page size, occupying about only one third of the total page area, sometimes up to half the page area, and very occasionally larger. It would appear that the aim has been to reproduce the paintings in such a way as to give an indication of their relative size; large paintings reproduced larger, the smaller ones smaller. A commendable idea except one cannot help but feel as if one is losing out somewhere. However at least the sensible large format of the book, slightly over square, accommodates the landscape proportions of the paintings, and the excellent photography captures very well the rich texture of the paint surface. Interestingly most of the paintings are shown without a frame, that is with the raw edges of the painting showing. There are 140 colour plates plus 100 black and white photographs illustrating the essays and other sections.

It is without doubt a sumptuously produced volume, from the appealing matt finish cover with its tasteful silver embossed lettering on front, spine and back, to the quality stock used throughout: a heavy-weight buff colour for the pages of text at the front and back, and matt art paper for the plates. There is no question about the work contained herein, with their rich intensity of colour and powerful brush strokes superbly captured on the page – a valuable addition to any art lovers library. ( )