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I heritage home, camping and painting in the high country. Signal works from this period such as Red Rock and Snow, Coast Mountain Form and The Cloud Red Mountain clearly illustrate his direct experience of the local landscape. In 1932. Varley discovered Lynn Valley in North Vancouver with Vera Weatherbie. a former student with whom he had been passionately involved almost from his arrival in Vancouver six years previously. The Jericho years, it seems, were perhaps only outwardly idyllic after all. With Vera. Varley took to the rugged Lynn Headwaters region with the yearning of a stateless soul who has at last found his true home. His time here over the next four years is linked inextricably with his passion for Weatherbie. and for the intensely spiritual nature of his engagement as an artist with the natural world. The paintings which flowed from his North Shore studio years--works such as Dharana. Birth Of Clouds, Lynn Creek. The Trail To Rice Lake and Weather-Lynn Valley, arguably mark the apogee of his creative life, distinguishing him from all but Lawren Harris among the Group of Seven in his willingness to venture beyond landscape as a measure of one's independent experience of existence. By 1933 Varley was out of a job again. His increasingly estranged family suffered constant financial hardship: the bailiffs were a not unfamiliar sight. After years of irregular arrangements. Varley separated from his wife in 1934. leaving them both in desperate straits. For two years Varley lived at several locations within walking distance of what is now Lynn Headwaters Regional Park. His best known home still stands along the Rice Lake trail. In extremes of poverty and materials. Varley worked in his upper studio here, painting oils and watercolours of Lynn and Seymour peaks. Grouse Mountain and Blueridge uplands and Rice Lake. Documented in every kind of season and weather, these magnificent works still resonate in the viewer's deepest core. Varley's use of Luncheon at the Arts and Letters Club, Toronto, c. 1920. colour ranged far beyond the Group of Seven's customary earth-toned palette; it grew local, mystic and fierce. His expressive modes ranged widely, from naif summer larks to works suggestive variously of Edward Munch. Emily Carr and Sung Dynasty landscapes. In this he was utterly original and the forebearer of the East-West school of creativity that has been perennial since his days here. There is more than a trace of Varley at times in Jack Shadbolt. and Joe Plaskett's early portraits show evidence of Varley's ringing voice and colour. But since his final departure from the West Coast in 1937, we have seen no other works such as Vera. Mirror of Thought, the metaphysical Dharana or Night Ferry--composed in homage Red Rock and Snow, 1927-28. Oil on canvas. Power Corporation of Canada. "During his first decade in Canada Fred Varley was primarily interested in painting figures. The Ontario landscape did not captivate him as that of B.C. would, and before his departure he wrote: 'My main object in going West is becouse / have the opportunity for study. I have not experimented for years and I want badly to try out many adventures in paint that have been caged in too long.' ... Stimulated by the new experiences and the landscape.Varley sent 15 oil sketches and 4 remarkable canvases to the 1928 Group show." (Hill) Author Trevor Carolan writes from Deep Cove. T h e G r o u p of Seven. A r t for a Nation J u n e 20-Sept 2.VAG, is a comprehensive look at the history and social and cultural significance of the Croup of Seven. Strictly focussed on the decade of the 1920s and the official exhibitions of the Group, Charles C. Hill brings together many of the most important Canadian paintings of the period. from Ottawa to Vancouver and his beloved Lynn Valley home. Varley the man is long gone, yet the painter and his images of the North Shore country remain with us. What he leaves is the challenge of remembrance. The note he kept on his studio doors read: "Artists Arise or be Forever Fallen."" Clockwise from left front AX Jackson, Fred Varley, Lawren Harris, Barker Fairley, Frank Johnston, Arthur Lismer and J. EH. MacDonald. (Hill) ift