Alfred Joseph Casson was known for his watercolor paintings of small communities in southern and central Ontario, Canada. He was one of the members of the Group of Seven, active in the 1920s. He was born in 1898 in Toronto, Ontario but grew up in Guelph and attended school in Hamilton. He first saw the artwork of the unformed Group of Seven when he and his family had returned to Toronto in 1916.

He enrolled in art classes at the Central Technical School and worked as a freelance commercial designer. At the commercial art firm of Rous and Mann, Casson worked under the guidance of Franklin Carmichael. Casson learned typography and graphics from Carmichael, and the two often took sketching trips ...