Price : 42.95$
This publication has been done in accordance with the Oubliés ! Scott, Brandtner, Eveleigh, Webber : revoir l’abstraction montréalaise des années 1940, exhibition, presented at the Musée d’art de Joliette from october 15, 2022 to January 15, 2023.
It brings light on four artists who are today relatively or almost entirely unknown – one woman and three men – nevertheless played a part in the aesthetic upheavals that led to abstraction in 1940s Montreal. Very active in the art milieu throughout the decade, Marian Dale Scott, Fritz Brandtner, Henry Eveleigh, and Gordon Webber captured the attention of critics of the time, who employed the term “abstract art” to describe both non-objective works and bold formal explorations that retained some reference to visible reality.
An examination of these artists’ practices reveals a remarkable openness to international contemporary art trends – French, German, British, and American. Their work and its critical reception conjure a complex picture of the debates on abstraction that took place in Montreal during the 1940s, so often reduced to the controversies surrounding the emergence of the Automatist movement. The artistic innovations of Paul-Émile Borduas and his group and the radical tone of their 1948 Refus global manifesto cemented their status as Quebec’s abstract avant-garde but also had the effect of eclipsing other visions of abstraction being explored during the same period.
This book reinstates the oeuvres of these forgotten protagonists in the narrative of abstract art, illustrating how their practices encompassed a variety of themes: emotion, science, human experience in the broadest sense – but also, as the Second World War unfolded, the violence that marked their era.
About the author
Distinguished professor at the art history department of the Université du Québec à Montréal since 1981, Esther Trépanier has directed the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec from 2008 until 2011 and the École supérieure de mode de Montréal from 2000 to 2007. She is the author of numerous books, exhibition catalogs and articles on Quebec and Canadian art from the first decades of the 20th century and on questions relating to modernity. Let us mention, among others, Peinture et modernité au Québec, 1919-1939 (Nota bene, 1998) and Peintres Juifs de Montréal. Témoins de leur époque, 1930-1948 (Les Éditions de l’Homme, 2008). She has also worked, as a collaborator or curator, on several exhibitions, including Marian Dale Scott. Pionnière de l’art moderne (MNBAQ, 2000), Femme artistes. La conquête de l’espace : 1900-1965 (MNBAQ, 2009 ; MAJ, 2010) and Mode et apparence dans la peinture québecoise, 1880-1945 (MNBAQ, 2012).
274 pages
21,5 x 25,5 cm (8 ½ x 10 in)
Soft glossy cover
English version
Publishing date : 2022
ISBN : 978-0-2280-1595-6