William Caldwell abandoned a successful career in graphic art to spend four years in Newfoundland mastering the skills of drawing. Four years later he moved to Watsons Corners, Lanark County, Ontario.

In Newfoundland his pencil drawings captured the people of the coast and outports and when he came to Lanark County, although he often painted the landscape, he was again more attracted by the characters who peopled the area.

The softness of his palette at first deceives the eye, but the bones of his subject do not lie far below the surface - the power and positive application of his pastel colours enfolding the harsh uplands of Lanark county in thick layers of light.

William Caldwell died in 1998.