Additional Images

Provenance:

Estate of James Samuel McCleary;
Private collection, Ontario

The McCleary's were neighbours with A.J Casson's mother. This painting was gifted to or purchased by the McCleary's and has been in the family for about 70 years.

Note:

A.J. Casson’s affection and fascination for rural vernacular architecture is as integral to the body of Canadian landscape painting as A.Y. Jackson’s affection and fascination for Quebec’s Charlevoix region. Saskatchewan Farm House is a refined composition, almost crystalline in its rendering of the farmhouse and buildings on the crest of a hillock. More of a studio composition than one done en plein air, Casson’s careful delineation of the foreground field with fence, the middle-ground of barren trees and buildings, and the elevated background of the late winter clouds foster serenity.

Casson’s serenity is always inhabited and humane. In contrast, the foreboding quality Lawren S. Harris’s structures sometimes possess is absent, and where Harris’s overcast skies may suggest gloom, Casson’s vaporous air is only calming. As the snow is beginning to melt and bare patches appear on the ground, the quiet farm house is active with Casson’s delicate little compositions: one window’s blind halfway up with drapes open, the other three-quarters up with drapes mostly closed–as the inhabitants go about their lives.