A.J. Casson
1898-1992

Winter In The Village, 1938

“For someone familiar with the modern metropolis of Toronto, it is hard to believe that when I painted this sketch of Willowdale it was no more than a scattered, rural Ontario community. Today, of course, it is in the heart of the city. I knew Willowdale quite well because I was a constant visitor to the home of my friend Frank Carmichael on Cameron Avenue. In those days, I would take the old radial car north up Yonge Street and then continue on foot as far as Frank’s home on a rickety, old boardwalk.

The painting shows my interest in sketching aging elm trees with their winter fingers reaching for the sky. The lonely figure in the picture is there to afford the viewer a sense of the proper scale, while in sketching the houses I have tried, as always, to convey the impression that they are actually being lived in.”

A.J. Casson
Source: Book titled “My Favourite Watercolours 1919 to 1957”
Published by Cerebrus/Prentice Hall