One of the greats of Canadian art is Alfred Joseph Casson. When he passed away in 1992 at the blessed age of 94, he left us with a plethora of paintings from Southern Ontario that document not only the charm of the village, but also the slowly disappearing architecture.
We will be focusing on the images from the Halton Hills area.

Alfred Joseph Casson

(May 17, 1898 – February 20, 1992 was an artist with the Group of Seven. Unlike the other Group of Seven artists, he painted mainly rural scenes of southern Ontario.
And one of his favourite places was Glen Williams, a village that is now famous for the Williams Mill Creative Art Studios.

That’s where his famous 1938 painting Street In Glen Williams came from.
It even sold for $542,800. It is from June 1, 2010 and is probably the biggest price ever listed for his paintings.

Casson painted many other works from Glen Williams:
Village Street October, Farmhouse Near Glen Williams, Country Road – Glen Williams.
But also Early Summer in Norval and others.

Casson´s history of participation in Group of Seven is also unusual.
In 1926, the Group of Seven consisted of only six, because Frank Johnston had left. So the artists turned to Casson to fill the position in the group. But Casson was different from the other artists all the time. He was not only the last member, but also continued to work as a commercial artist until he was sixty, when he retired as vice-president and artistic director of Samson-Mathews in Toronto.

In addition, he did not travel to the north of Canada to paint, but instead went to the south. He was enchanted by the rural environment of Southern Ontario. Casson died at the age of ninety-four and is buried with other members of the group in the McMichael Campus Cemetery.

Cover photo collage.
A.J. Casson 1943 / Street in Glen Williams