Characteristic of a large body of Roberts’ paintings, he captures the quiet dignity of a small Canadian town. Here, in Pembroke, Ontario, Roberts anchors the scene with the railway station and its snow-laden roof, the tracks drawing the spectator in, and a handful of passengers await the train. Similar in spirit to work he painted in Ontario, Quebec and elsewhere, the result is a skilful celebration of rural Canadian life and the character of Canada’s small communities.

Around the time he painted this painting he was living in Port Credit, where we visited him and selected paintings from him to offer for sale at Walter Klinkhoff Gallery in Montreal. By the mid-1980s Roberts had already held over thirty-one-man shows in Toronto alone. A member of the Ontario Society of Artists (1944) and an Associate Member of the Royal Canadian Academy (1945), he has been a regular contributor to their exhibitions over the years as well as the C.N.E., and public galleries across the country.