Caven Atkins

Caven Atkins was born in London, Ontario and was raised in Winnipeg. He studied at the Winnipeg School of Art under L.L. Fitzgerald and American artist C.K. Gebhardt. Atkins worked as a commercial artist and art educator in Winnipeg and Toronto before moving to Detroit in 1945. In the mid-1930s Atkins was part of a circle of Toronto painters that included Carl Schaefer, Peter and Bobs Howarth, Pegi Nicol Macleod, Charles Comfort and Paraskeva Clark. All were members of the Canadian Group of Painters who came to maturity following the Group of Seven but before Abstraction really came to the fore in Canada. In Toronto he turned from oils to watercolours, painting expressive and spontaneous landscapes such as this one.