John Kasyn CSPWC (1926 - 2008)

John Kasyn was a very popular Canadian painter.

He was born in Poland and came to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada with his family in 1938. In 1940, they moved to Toronto, Ontario, where he lived and worked for the rest of his life. (1)

His mediums were oil and watercolor. He also used a mixture of oil and Lucite 44. The subjects of his most famous paintings are backyard views of row houses in Toronto. (2)

Quote: "People don't live at the front of their houses. The back lanes are more interesting than the front. That's where the clotheslines are, the lean-tos, the garbage cans and broken fences." - John Kasyn (3)

His style was Realism*. AskART images have excellent illustrations of his work.

His formal art education began in Winnipeg with Saturday morning classes at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. In Toronto, he attended Central Technical School and the Ontario College of Art where he studied under Frederick Sproston Challener (4), George Pepper, Jock MacDonald and Rowley Walter Murphy. (5)

He was a member the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour* (1960 - 1975). He also exhibited with the Ontario Society of Artists* in 1958 and the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts* in 1959, 1960, and 1961. In 1976, he was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Art Gallery of Windsor, Ontario. (6)

Through the years, his works were exhibited at numerous private galleries including Beckett Gallery, Hamilton; Canadian Fine Arts Gallery, Toronto; Mazelow Gallery, Toronto; Damkjar Burton Gallery, Hamilton; Wallack Gallery, Ottawa; DeVooght Gallery, Vancouver; Roberts Gallery, Toronto; Galerie Walter Klinkhoff, Montreal; and Kaspar Gallery, Toronto. (7)

Kasyn's paintings are in numerous private and corporate collections and they are very avidly traded on the secondary (auction) market. However, our search for his works in Canadian museums using the Canadian Heritage Information Network*, the Quebec Museum Society and various independent museum sites turned up only one work in a Canadian museum, the 12" X 16" oil on board titled "Borden Street" in Museum London, London, Ontario. (8)

His awards include the Gold Medal at the Annual Exhibition of the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour of London, Ontario in 1966. (9)

Footnotes:

(1) Source: A Dictionary of Canadian Artists (1974), by Colin S. MacDonald.

(2) Source: AskART images; A Dictionary of Canadian Artists (1974), by Colin S. MacDonald; and The Collector's Dictionary of Canadian Artists at Auction (2001), by Anthony R. Westbridge and Diana L. Bodnar.

Note: The oil and Lucite 44 mixture has been used by painters since the 1950s. One advantage is, it dries in about 48 hours; one disadvantage is, unlike acrylic paint, it is diluted with potentially hazardous solvents. Source: The Painter's Guide to Studio Methods and Materials (1983), by Kay Reed; Prentice-Hall (288 pgs), online at - http://www.noteaccess.com/MATERIALS/AcrylicSolutionP.htm.

(3) Source: Joyner Waddington's, Toronto quoting Toronto Star article, December 2000 - http://joyner.waddingtons.ca/articles/canada-urban-landscape2009/.

(4) All artist teachers mentioned in this biography have their own pages in AskART.

(5) Sources: Roberts Gallery - http://www.robertsgallery.net/dynamic/artist_bio.asp?ArtistID=118; Hodgins Art Auctions - http://www.hodginsauction.com/hodgins/salesofnote/Kasyn.htm; A Dictionary of Canadian Artists (1974), by Colin S. MacDonald; and The Collector's Dictionary of Canadian Artists at Auction (2001), by Anthony R. Westbridge and Diana L. Bodnar.

Note: Kasyn would have been in one of the first classes offered at WAG. "The WAG's Studio Programs developed in response to popular demand. Saturday Morning Art Classes, sponsored by Winnipeg School Division, began in 1937 and are still conducted each fall and winter in our studios." Source: http://wag.ca/learn/wag-studio.

(6) Sources: Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour - http://www.cspwc.com/home.html; The Collector's Dictionary of Canadian Artists at Auction (2001), by Anthony R. Westbridge and Diana L. Bodnar; and the Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art* data base - http://ccca.finearts.yorku.ca/OSA/search_detail.html?artist=kasyn&qtitle=&qdate=&keyfield=search.

Please note: Most sources show Kasyn as a member of the Ontario Society of Artists; however our search of the OSA website (http://ontariosocietyofartists.org/the_osa_archives/history) list of past and present members does not include his name, but his name is listed in the 1968 OSA President's Annual Report as a member of a panel that included OSA and non-OSA members, his name has OSA after it (?), many others don't. Additional exhibitions with the OSA are also noted by some sources, however the Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art data base, which has searchable online copies of OSA catalogues going back to 1872, shows only the one, 1958, when he exhibited the watercolor titled "Deserted".

(7) Source: Roberts Gallery, Toronto.

(8) Note: Roberts Gallery, Toronto, a very highly respected Canadian gallery, indicates, in Kasyn's biography on their website (http://www.robertsgallery.net/dynamic/artist_bio.asp?ArtistID=118), that his work is in the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the Art Gallery of Ontario. These museums usually show up on our artist searches if the artist has works in them; they did not for Kasyn.

(9) Source: Hodgins Art Auctions, Calgary - http://www.hodginsauction.com/hodgins/salesofnote/Kasyn.htm.

* For more in-depth information about these terms and others, see AskART.com Glossary http://www.askart.com/AskART/lists/Art_Definition.aspx.

Prepared and contributed to askART by M.D. Silverbrooke.