A.J. Casson (1898-1992)
Full Biography - A.J. Casson (1898-1992)
A.J. Casson (1898-1992)
The youngest member of the Group of Seven, Alfred Joseph (A.J.) “Cass” Casson was a painter known for his images of Ontario villages and for his championing of the medium of watercolour. He was also an exceptional commercial artist who, in more than three decades at Sampson-Matthews, played a key role in the development of silkscreen printing in Canada.
Born in Toronto in 1898, Casson was apprenticed to a Hamilton lithography company at age 15, gradually moving from sweeping floors to blocking in letters on the stones used for printing billboards, learning the skills of a commercial artist in his second job at nearby Commercial Engravers. A move back to Toronto in 1916 with his family saw Casson designing labels, newspaper ads and Eaton’s catalogues as well as beginning landscape painting and taking art classes at night.
In late 1919 Casson was hired by Rous and Mann as assistant to the company’s chief designer, Franklin Carmichael. He considered this “perhaps the single most important happening of (his) career”. Carmichael was mentor to Casson, allowing him rare creativity and freedom in the commercial art environment and was the biggest influence on Casson’s art, both commercial and fine. Carmichael took Casson sketching and camping and introduced him to his fellow Group of Seven members.
In 1926 Casson followed Carmichael to Sampson-Matthews, he was invited to join the Group of Seven and he bought his first car and started exploring southern Ontario on sketching trips. Around that time Sampson-Matthews began silks screening and Casson led the experimenting, creating some of the first commercial silkscreen prints in Canada. Over the next three decades Casson built a reputation as a consummate designer producing some of the best commercial work ever created in Canada. He oversaw the Sampson-Matthews silkscreen program from its inception.
When Carmichael left Sampson-Matthews in 1932, Casson became chief designer and was further promoted to vice-president and art director following the sudden death of Joseph Sampson in 1946, all the while continuing to develop his own art in his spare time. He retired from Sampson-Matthews at the end of 1958, after 32 years with the company.
“Cass was a perfectionist, in design and production and every detail. Every colour was submitted to him and often had to be redone. He really was a taskmaster, and that was to our advantage. He was very approachable, didn’t intimidate anyone, very friendly.” ~Graham Mathews, younger son of Charles Matthews
In his later years Casson painted diligently, playing a leading role in the Canadian art world and is remembered for his support of younger artists. By the time he received the Order of Canada, in 1978, he was the last living member of the Group of Seven. He died in 1992 at the age of 93.1
Sources:
1 “Art for War and Peace: How a Great Art Project Helped Canada Discover Itself” by Ian Sigvaldason/Scott Steedman published by Read Leaf 2015
White Pine: An original print, a canvas copy
It is commonly assumed that all of the Sampson-Matthews prints were translations of original paintings, and in some cases this is true. Because of this people view the “copies” as inferior to the original works, regardless of the high quality of the reproduction. In most cases the opposite is true; there is no “original” other than the silkscreen print.
Some prints in the catalogue were copies of existing paintings, but this was always the exception. Most often the prints were created from original designs, commissioned for that purpose. In one noteworthy case – Casson’s White Pine – the oil painting was created 9 years after the “original” silkscreen, using the print as a guide. He had done a small watercolour near Whitefish Falls in July 1948 and turned it into a print later that year. It soon became one of the most popular Sampson-Matthews silkscreens.
After a conversation with Robert McMichael in 1957 where Casson revealed that the only “original” of White Pine was the small watercolour, McMichael hinted that were Casson to decide to ever make a large oil version, he would buy it, Casson quickly created “his best known reproduction”, a breathtaking major canvas of White Pine. It is now one of the stars of the McMichael Collection in Kleinberg, ON.1
Sources:
1 “Art for War and Peace: How a Great Art Project Helped Canada Discover Itself” by Ian Sigvaldason/Scott Steedman published by Read Leaf 2015
