Summer Landscape

Born in Toronto, A.J. Casson spent his youth in Guelph and Hamilton where he first studied and began a lifelong career in commercial art. In 1919 he was employed by Rous & Mann Ltd. in Toronto where he was assistant designer to Franklin Carmichael (1890-1945) who would become the youngest member of the Group of Seven when it was established in 1920. Casson was invited to become a member of the Group in 1926. A printmaker and painter in watercolours, Casson began exhibiting oils in 1922, mostly landscapes from Haliburton and Muskoka. "Summer Landscape" was painted at Paugh Lake in southern Algonquin Park. The rolling rhythms of the hills, the silhouetted foliage and billowing clouds are all characteristic of the artist's sensitivity to the gentler aspects of the northern landscape.