Provenance

Roberts Gallery, Toronto

Masters Gallery, Calgary

Private collection, Calgary

For the most part, A. J. Casson left the more elemental and epic landscape of the northland to other members of the Group of Seven. His serene pictorial compositions have emerged mainly from southern and central Ontario settings. Particularly, he has been the pictorial biographer of the small communities of Ontario. He has celebrated such towns and villages as Bancroft, Glen Williams, Kleinburg, Parry Sound and Baptiste, located just south of Algonquin Park. His crisp, deliberate style has been ideally suited to depict the tidy rustic architecture, with its neat verandahs, almost puritan air of no-nonsense form. Although human figures usually play only bit parts in Casson’s sketches, his village paintings are nevertheless redolent of humanity. Casson’s small on the spot oil panels are executed with a fresh and direct vigor while keeping a high regard for craftsmanship of the work.