The West Wind - Tom Thomson - 300-piece Puzzle

Canadian Artists Puzzle Collection

About The West Wind
The West Wind is a 1917 artwork that was painted in the last year of Thomson's life and was one of his final works on canvas. An iconic image, the pine tree at its centre has been described as growing "in the national ethos as our one and only tree in a country of trees".

Thomson based The West Wind on an earlier, slightly different sketch he produced in 1916 while working as a park ranger in Algonquin Park (The Jack Pine, also in our puzzle collection) In the finished canvas, Thomson moved the pine further to the right, replaced a less defined foreground plane with strongly patterned rock shapes, and removed a dead tree limb from the ground.

About Tom Thomson
Thomas John Thomson (1877-1917) was a Canadian artist active in the early 20th century. During his short career, he produced roughly 400 oil sketches on small wood panels and approximately 50 larger works on canvas. His works consist almost entirely of landscapes, depicting trees, skies, lakes, and rivers. He used broad brush strokes and a liberal application of paint to capture the beauty and colour of the Ontario landscape.