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George McLean may be Canada’s greatest living painter of wild creatures and places. Certainly he is one of a very small pantheon of masters in this field, worldwide.

Now 77, after more than a half-century of painstaking work that has garnered him international acclaim, McLean is at the height of his powers — producing canvasses stunning for their insight, technical reach and ambition.

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Yet for two years running, this most authentic of Canadian artists has been excluded from the list of new entrants to the Order of Ontario — despite a movement from a group of his admirers to see him receive the award, which is long overdue.

This is, simply, a disgrace.

His subject matter is the wilderness of Ontario itself, placing him in direct line of succession from past masters such as Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven. If McLean isn’t worthy of Ontario’s highest honour, no one is.

Disclosure: I know of McLean’s nomination because I am among those who have supported it. I met him at a Tom Thomson Art Gallery event in 2010, coinciding with the launch of his international show, The Living Landscape, which concluded at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming in 2012. I soon became an admirer of his work. In late 2014, at the request of one of McLean’s patrons, I helped assemble biographical material that was sent to the Order of Ontario’s advisory council — apparently, to no avail.