Alfred Joseph Casson
Canadian CGP, CSPWC, G7, OC, OSA, RCA [1898-1992]
NOVEMBER HILLS; 1963
oil on board
12 x 15 in. (30.5 x 38.1 cm)
signed lower right; signed, titled & dated verso and on the artist's label

Provenance: Roberts Gallery, Toronto ON

Note: Casson, the youngest member of the Group of Seven, was introduced to the original members at the Arts and Letters Club in 1920 by Franklin Carmichael. He soon became a regular at the Club and an invited contributor to the Group shows, though it was not until 1925 that he joined the Group on a trip to Lake Superior. He accepted the invitation to join the Group the following year. While an important member of the Group of Seven, Casson was always somewhat removed from the Group, and strove to set his work apart from that of other members. He travelled and sketched frequently, as he had a love of the outdoors and plein air painting. The artist's focus was progressively drawn to the gentler and more civilized areas of southern Ontario. He painted small towns, pastoral and rural scenes, at various times of day and throughout the seasons. Casson captured images, for posterity, of a landscape that he feared was quickly disappearing: "the pastoral pioneering Ontario that has vanished in the face of a noisier urban world."