Oxtongue Lake, 1971

Roberts Gallery, Toronto Private Collection, Ontario

Margaret Gray, Margaret Rand and Lois Steen, “A.J. Casson”, Agincourt, Ontario, 1976, page 50 Ian Thom, “Casson’s Cassons”, Kleinburg, Ontario, 1988, page 18

A.J. Casson painted Oxtongue Lake in the Algonquin Highlands many times during his career. This area, near Huntsville, was visited frequently by the Group of Seven members on their sketching trips undertaken both independently and collectively. Algonquin Park and its environs has inspired numerous paintings by the Group, becoming quintessential in the canon of Canadian art. Oxtongue Lake was among one of A.J. Casson’s favourite places to paint. The artist remarked that “if you ask me to paint a picture of Oxtongue Lake with one of the islands, I could sit down and do it right now.” The simplified forms, two‒dimensional patterning and pronounced flatness of this work, Oxtongue Lake are characteristic of the style and technique of Casson’s mature work, while the subject and composition are evocative of works by the Group. With a palette of grey-blue and muted greens, “Oxtongue Lake” captures the calm serenity of the remote Algonquin lake. Ian Thom writes, “what also emerges with startling clarity is an exquisite, emotional tension. His ability to use composition, colour, light, technique and subject matter to create images of a preternatural, haunting stillness, may be Casson’s greatest achievement as a painter.”