Artist Alfred Joseph Casson
Title White Pine
Media gouache on paper board
Dated 1947 --53 ca.
Size 29 x 39.25 in. / 73.7 x 99.7 cm.
Frame Size 38.5 x 48.5 x 1.5 in.

Notes
signed lower right; small number notations throughout; framed with special glass

Reference
This gouache on paper board was created by Casson as a working study for the Sampson Matthews silkscreen White Pine.

According to the book, Art for War and Peace: How a Great Art Project Helped Canada Discover Itself by Ian Sigvaldason and Scott Steedman [page 140], Casson completed a small watercolour sketch of White Pine in July of 1948 near Whitefish Falls, Ontario. The watercolour was in the collection of Casson's wife Margaret and turned into the silkscreen print that same year [1948]. After the popularity of the print, Robert McMichael hinted to Casson that he'd be happy to buy a large oil version if Casson ever decided to make a copy. Less than three weeks later, Casson drove up to McMichael's rural home with a large painting jammed into his car. 'His best-known reproduction, White Pine, was now a breathtaking major canvas'. Casson told McMichael that he had reworked the mass of flat clouds in the top left of the print. 'It seemed right for the silkscreen and certainly simplified its production' Casson explained, but in the painting 'I felt free to add fleeting white cirrus clouds which give a breezier, more windblown effect.' In 1965, the McMichaels donated their house and collection to the government of Ontario, with the understanding that the ten-acre property outside of Kleinburg would be turned into a museum of Canadian art. The McMichael Collection now contains more than five thousand works and one of the star exhibits is still A.J. Casson's oil on canvas of White Pine.

See cover and pages 140-141, 210 in Art for War and Peace: How a Great Art Project Helped Canada Discover Itself by Ian Sigvaldason and Scott Steedman, published by Read Leaf, 2016; see the oil canvas at the McMichael Museum website

Provenance
according to the estate, this work was purchased from the McCready Galleries, Toronto in the late 1960s or early 1970s; from a Calgary estate
Estimate CAD$60,000-$80,000

Artist Alfred Joseph Casson
Title White Pine
Media colour silkscreen on paper board
Dated 1947 --53 ca.
Size 29.25 x 39 in. / 74.3 x 99.1 cm.
Frame Size 33 x 43 x 1.25 in.

Notes
signed in screen lower right; framed; some handling marks and scratches noted; handling marks and stains on frame noted

Reference
illustrated on the cover and pages 140-141, 210 in Art for War and Peace: How a Great Art Project Helped Canada Discover Itself, by Ian Sigvaldason and Scott Steedman, published by Read Leaf, 2016

Provenance
private collection, Calgary
Estimate CAD$500-$700

Artist Alfred Joseph Casson
Title Bayview Ave.
Media graphite on paper
Size 7.5 x 10 in. / 19 x 25.4 cm.
Frame Size 17.5 x 19.5 x 1.5 in.

Notes
signed lower right; titled lower left; framed with archival mat

Provenance
from a Calgary estate
Estimate CAD$2,500-$3,500

Artist Alfred Joseph Casson
Title Untitled - Trees
Media graphite on paper
Size 8 x 10.25 in. / 20.3 x 26 cm.
Frame Size 18.5 x 20 x 1.5 in.

Notes
signed lower right; framed with archival mat; drymounted to paper board

Provenance
from a Calgary estate
Estimate CAD$2,500-$3,500