Sold for: $115,250

PROVENANCE
Roberts Gallery, Toronto
Private Collection, Ontario
Sold sale of Fine Canadian Art, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, May 15, 2003, lot 38
Private Collection, Toronto

LITERATURE
Paul Duval, A.J. Casson, Roberts Gallery, 1975, reproduced frontispiece

Canada’s many important public collections preserve for public display a multitude of artworks lovingly embraced as national treasures. Much of the work created by the artists who formed and were associated with the Group of Seven, however, was originally conceived to hang in the home. A.J. Casson’s Autumn Panorama from 1975 is a wonderful example of this. While providing a strikingly expansive vista painted with classic Casson colour choices, it is also easily imagined as having pride of place above a mantel. The long horizontal composition also calls to mind other works of similar dimensions, such as Decoration: Autumn Landscape by Tom Thomson, in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario, as well as the cottage murals Dr. James MacCallum commissioned from J.E.H MacDonald in 1915, now in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada. The painting’s format speaks to a very humane practicality that underlies these artists’ intentions, with its roots in the Arts and Crafts movement led by William Morris: namely that art is made by people for people, and meant to be enjoyed in their most intimate settings.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars