Caven Atkins

Caven Atkins (1907–2000) was a Canadian figurative and landscape painter.

Early years Born in London, Ontario, Caven Atkins was raised in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. From 1925 to 1928 he studied with Lionel LeMoine FitzGerald at the Winnipeg School of Art. After graduation, Atkins worked at Brigden's commercial art firm, where he met Bertram Brooker and Charles Comfort. Atkins later became friends with Fritz Brandtner, who introduced him to German expressionism. While teaching at the Ontario College of Art in 1945, he wrote an article for Canadian Art magazine on using different media.

Like many artists, Atkins found employment in the immediate post-war period difficult to find. In 1945, he moved to Birmingham, Michigan where he worked as an illustrator and designer for the Ford Motor Company until he retired. Atkins never returned to live in Canada. In 1979, the Art Gallery of Windsor curated a survey by curator Ted Fraser, titled A Retrospective Exhibition of Selected Works by Caven Atkins Spanning Fifty Years of the Artist's Life. In 1987, the Art Gallery of Windsor organized the circulating exhibition Caven Atkins: the Winnipeg years curated by Ted Fraser.

Selected collections His work is included in the National Gallery of Canada, the Canadian War Museum, the Art Gallery of Windsor (56 works) the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton and the Remai Modern, Saskatoon.

Memberships Atkins belonged to the Manitoba Society of Artists, the Canadian Group of Painters (1941-1943); Canadian Society of Graphic Art (1941-1943); and the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour (1943-1945) (he was president of the latter two societies). He also belonged to Ontario Association of Teachers of Art (1944-1945).