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One of the first paintings in its permanent collection of Canadian Art is being celebrated in Thomson’s Painting, an exhibition at the Judith and Norman Alix Art Gallery.

The exhibition, running through March 15 at the downtown Sarnia public art gallery, features Chill November – a 1916 oil painting by the Canadian artist Tom Thomson purchased in 1920 by the Sarnia Women’s Conservation Art Association.

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The association was made up of 10 Sarnia women who had been part of a group of volunteers raising funds for the Red Cross during the First World War. After the war ended, they teamed up with Norman Gurd, a member of the Sarnia Library Board, to raise money to collect art for a public gallery they hoped would one day open in the city.

What became known as the Sarnia Art Movement worked with Gurd and James McCallum, a Toronto doctor who was an early supporter and patron of painters in the Group of Seven, to collect work from contemporary Canadian artists.