Painters Eleven (also known as Painters 11 or P11) was a group of abstract artists active in Canada between 1953 and 1960. They are associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement. History Since the 1920s, artists in English Canada had been heavily influenced by the landscape painting of the Group of Seven, and the Canadian Group of Painters. The Canadian public often regarded modernist movements such as Cubism, Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism as bizarre and subversive. The acquisition of modernist paintings, even Impressionist works, by public galleries was invariably a source of controversy. In Quebec, Paul-Émile Borduas and Jean-Paul Riopelle spearheaded the modernist collective known as Les Automatistes, as early as 1941. However, their artistic influence was not quickly felt in English Canada, or indeed much beyond Montreal. In 1953, Toronto artists Oscar Cahén, Walter Yarwood, and Harold Town discussed the possibility of mounting a group show of abstract paintings to strengthen public appreciation of the contemporary art form. A few weeks later, artist William Ronald persuaded the Simpson’s department store in Toronto to display some abstract paintings alongside their modern furniture. During a publicity photo shoot for the Simpson's exhibition, entitled Abstracts at Home, Cahén proposed the group show idea, and a subsequent meeting at Alexandra Luke's cottage in Oshawa led to the formation of Painters Eleven. Formation In 1953, eleven abstract painters from Ontario — Jack Bush, Oscar Cahén, Hortense Gordon, Tom Hodgson, Alexandra Luke, Jock Macdonald, Ray Mead, Kazuo Nakamura, William Ronald, Harold Town and Walter Yarwood — dubbed themselves Painters Eleven and held their first exhibition at Roberts Gallery in Toronto in 1954. The exhibition, arranged by Jack Bush, was the first major commercial exhibition of abstract expressionist art in Toronto. Unlike the Group of Seven whose members' work evolved along parallel lines, Painters Eleven did not share a common artistic vision as a group apart from a commitment to abstraction. This was reflected in the diversity of the group's members. Decades separated the youngest from the eldest, and before they sold their paintings they made their living as freelance commercial artists or worked in advertising and as art teachers. Two had studied at summer schools conducted by the American abstract expressionist Hans Hofmann and William Ronald "sat in" on his classes, while others were graduates of the Ontario College of Art, and still others were self-taught. Within the group itself, the artistic center of gravity seems