Total Distance: 4.5 km
Estimated time: 90 minutes

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The Studio Building

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The Designation: The Studio Building is the earliest purpose-built artist studio in Canada and represents the visions of a young generation of Canadian artists. In 2005, it was designated as a National Historic Site.  

Address: 25 Severn Street

Opening hours: The Studio Building is a privately-owned apartment building and is not open to the public.

Architecture

A Place for Canadian Artists
The Studio Building was built in 1913-14. The building was commissioned by Lawren Harris (a Group of Seven painter) and art patron Dr. James MacCallum. Harris’ intention was to build a space specifically designed for artists to promote the development of new Canadian art.

The building was designed by Eden Smith (1859-1949), a British immigrant and fellow Arts & Letters Club friend of Harris and MacCallum. Smith designed the building with the specific purpose of housing art studios. His intention was to create a simple yet functional building.

An Early Modern Building
The resulting Studio Building is the first purpose-built studio in Canada, and is one of the first early Modern buildings in the country. At the time of its construction, in the early 20th century, the building was at the cutting-edge of Canadian architecture.

The Curious Windows Serve an Indispensable Purpose
The building is a simple three-storey concrete structure, covered in red brick and located in the Rosedale Valley Park. It has the appearance of a factory building or a warehouse.  The building is characterized by its six large windows of single-pane glass, located on the principal façade. These building were specifically designed to let in the indirect northern sunlight - natural light sought out by artists for its clearness. Smaller windows decorate the other sides of the building.

Two studios were located on each of the building’s three floors. The studio spaces were large rooms with four metre-high ceilings. Each studio had a small gallery at one end that was often used as a sleeping quarters, underneath which was a small sitting area.

Always Was and Still a Studio
Today, the building retains its original look. Some of the studios however have been modified. Studios have been combined to create large one-floor apartment units, and bathrooms and kitchenettes have replaced previous sitting areas under galleries. Otherwise, the design of the Studio Building remains intact.  

Then

Home to the Group of Seven
The history of the Studio Building is inextricably linked to the Group of Seven. Indeed, it was commissioned by Group of Seven artist Lawren Harris and art patron Dr. MacCallum. Harris was an heir to the Massay-Harris farm machinery fortune, and paid for most of the building’s costs, while Dr. MacCallum funded the balance.

The Studio Building was intended to be a place where Canadian artists could focus on their work and on developing a new type of Canadian art, characterized by landscape painting. It was here that many Group of Seven artists met with friends and produced their world-renown paintings.

The first six artists to use the Studio Building were Lawren Harris, Tom Thomson (who shared a studio with Jackson J. Beaty), A.Y. Jackson, J.E.H. MacDonald, Arthur Heming, and Albert Curtis Williamson. These artists shared a common interest in Canadian themes– together they radically changed and redefined the way Canadian landscapes were depicted.

Pioneer Artists
Following the Group of Seven artists (who dissolved in the early 1930s), other artists moved in to the building in the 1930s and 1940s. Many of these artists later became known as the pioneers of Modern art in Canada.

Changing Hands, Changing Uses
In 1948, Harris sold the building to artist Gordon MacNamara and his partner Charles K. Redfern. MacNamara was a lawyer who, after serving in the Canadian Army during the war, decided to become a full-time artist. When purchased, the building was in a sorry state of disrepair. Redfern and MacNamara improved the building and, as a result, the rent increased.

Soon after, in 1949, Yulia Biriukova and Thoreau MacDonald were evicted. Later, in 1955, Jackson left the building. By the late 1950s, all of the original tenants had moved out of the building and it was no longer valued as a space for emerging new Canadian art.

The last internationally-renown artist to reside in the building was Harold Town, whose work typifies the postwar artistic direction towards individualism and non-objective form. He moved into the building in the late 1950s and remained until the 1980s.

Now

Slow Encroachment of Urban Development on The Studio Building
Almost a century after the opening of the Studio Building, Canada’s first purpose built artist studio was under threat of losing one of its most important qualities – its northern light. In 2003, the artist and long-time owner of the Studio Building, Gordon MacNamara, was going to lose his daylight to the shadow of a proposed condominium development.

Originally built on an open landscape, Toronto’s towers and roads have gradually encroached closer to the Studio Building. When Mr. MacNamara bought the building from renowned artist Lawren Harris in the late 1940s, Severn Street was a short dirt road leading down the ravine from Young Street.

In the 1950s, the Toronto Transit Corporation cut off the street when a new subway line was built beside the Studio Building. Despite trains regularly rumbling pass the Studio Building, it was still an exceptional place in downtown Toronto to have an art studio. Many artists in the 1950s and 1960s, long after the last of the Group of Seven members had left, enjoyed the wonderful studios, specifically oriented to capture the daylight.

Saving the ‘Morning Light’
The Studio Building came to the public’s attention in 2003, when the Canadian Tire Corporation proposed the development of two condominium towers on its retail property along Yonge Street, immediately across from the Studio Building. Toronto City Council supported the project. Torontonians, however, were not in favour after a very successful opening of the Studio Building to the public during the annual Doors Open Toronto weekend. Despite his 92 years of age, MacNamara fought the City of Toronto and Canadian Tire Corporation at Ontario Municipal Board hearings. The case was resolved in favour of Gordon MacNamara, and he received a cash settlement.

From Father to Son
Gordon MacNamara’s adopted son inherited the building after he died in 2006. Today, the building continues to function as an apartment building with studio space.

Did you know...

Emily Carr’s Creative Epiphany
In November 1927, Emily Carr visited the Studio Building for the first time. Harris’ artwork left a profound impression on her. She wrote in her journal “I guess that long talk in Lawren Harris’ studio was the pivot on which turned my life.” (HSMBC report; 486). Her post-1927 paintings featuring sweeping wind-blown trees are considered her best work and are a result of her visit to the Studio Building.

The Shack on Display
After some lengthy negotiations, in 1962, Gordon MacNamara agreed to sell Tom Thomson’s old shack located behing the Studio Building. The shack was sold to art collector Robert McMichael who had it removed to exhibit at the McMichael gallery in Kleinberg, northwest of the city. The terms of the agreement required McMichael to pay MacNamara $800 as well as to landscape the resulting vacant spot to erase any trace of the shed's presence.

A Woman Among the Men
The first woman artist to rent out space in the Studio Building was artist Marion Long. In 1915, she rented Thomson’s and Jackson’s studio. For the next ten years she painted alongside the other men.

Discovery

Learn more about the Group of Seven, and other Canadian artists of the thirties, by visiting the National Gallery of Canada’s online exhibition Canadian Painting in the Thirties.

Take a stroll down to the Studio Building to see for yourself how important the imposing windows on the now modest building really are for past, present and future artists.