Artists don't just paint with brushes
Québec artists are not always distressed or troubled people. Some have been hunters and travellers, hockey fans or chic bohemians. Many of their stories are now visible in the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, on Sherbrooke Street.
Anyone, at any age, can go to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MBAM) to see the paintings of great European or North American masters, those works that are worth millions of dollars and appear in art books and magazines. It is one of the largest museums in Canada, and throughout its different buildings you can see the decorative arts, international, ancient, and modern art, graphic work, photography, and sculptures of different origins.
One of the lesser-known spaces is the Claire and Marc Bourgie Pavilion opened in 2011 and is dedicated to the art of Quebec, from its founding to modern times, including contemporary Inuit art. It is the largest gallery on the art of this province, and its pieces are strategically displaced across the five floors of the modern building on the vibrant Sherbrooke Street, where the evolution of social customs, religion, French and English influence, stories and human dramas are discovered. Even curious objects that you wouldn't expect to find in a museum are on display.
To begin with, there is the museum itself, which among its various pavilions includes a sober French-style building built in 1912, with its marble façade, and the glass and steel entrance atrium, inaugurated in 1991. The visitor does not realize it when it passes from one to another because a gallery crosses under Sherbrooke Street. You only get the hang of it when you find yourself in front of an elegant European-style staircase. The museum is located on the famous Golden Square Mile, the former area inhabited by the richest families in Montreal.
And what is a blue canoe doing there?
One object that immediately catches your eye is the blue canoe hanging from a wall in the Champs Libres room, dedicated to the 60s and 70s. It is not just any canoe, but the one used by the famous Montreal painter Jean-Paul Riopelle when he went hunting with his guide Gilles Gagné. It was painted and decorated by the artist and donated to the museum when he stopped hunting ducks and geese in l ’Ile-aux-Oies.
The story of the painter and his guide, and his mutual friend Champlain Charest, deserves to be told. It must be said that Riopelle was born into a wealthy family and lived for many years in Paris, wherein in 1968 he met Charest, an art and wine aficionado who happened to be living right next to Riopelle in Sainte-Marguerite-du -Lac-Masson.
Since then, they became great friends and began hunting, especially in search of snow geese, waterfowl and other species of geese and ducks, first in Cap Tourmente and, taking advantage of the fact that Charest had a seaplane, and then in other reserves in Québec and Northern Canada.
This taste for the landscape and the cultures of northern Canada can be seen in a large part of his works, especially those of his maturity.
The friendship lasted for more than 30 years until Riopelle died in 2002. It was around this time that Riopelle painted the canoe and donated it to Quebec. Champlain, who was born in 1931, bought many of Riopelle's works throughout his life and became famous for his collection of wines and his restaurants.
Even after Riopelle's death, the guide Gagné has been seen many times in the National Museum of Fine Arts, in Québec City, where the famous work l’Hommage à Rosa Luxemburg is located. It is certain that each time he finds new meanings because Gagné not only accompanied the painter to hunting and fishing but also helped him to carry out this extraordinary work that measures 40 meters in length. Some of the birds found in the painting were hunted and delicately positioned by Gagné himself, and in some places the silhouette of his own hands is eternal. The story of this particular friendship is told in the film L’homme de l’Isle, by Bruno Boulianne, which was presented in 2017 as part of the Festival international du film sur l ’art.
Next year will be remembered 20 years since Riopelle's death, and several works by this Montreal artist can be seen at MBAM, which recently organized an exhibition focusing on the influence of northern territories and indigenous cultures. Some of his works are recognizable by their small multi-coloured squares, reminiscent of the appearance of a Byzantine mosaic. His painting technique is so unique that he would use knives, spatulas and other tools instead of brushes, creating dramatic effects with rich texture.
The painter who was a fan of the Canadiens
If the story of Riopelle is that of a serene and careful man, who built an artistic career from a solid school of painting, there are other Québec creators who have had a different and sometimes scandalous trajectory. This is the case of Serge Lemoyne, his contemporary, who died when he was barely 57 years old, in 1998. In the 60s he was a promoter of pop culture and graffiti, an irreverent one who carried out some of the first happenings, those activities between improvised and controversial that gave voices to young artists and launched them into the media and publicity. One of his possible “merits” was having been expelled from the École des beaux-arts de Montréal. The critic Marcel Saint-Pierre said of him that he is "Le père des graffiteurs et des performeurs."
Lemoyne was a fan of ice hockey and devoted a full decade of his career to the sport. In 1969, at the 20-20 gallery in London, Ontario, he decided that for the next ten years he would only use the colours blue, white and red, which are precisely the same of the Canadiens team. He announced that the works presented that night would be packed and buried and that they would only be recovered after 10 years. It was one of his strategies to get attention, something constant over the years. By 1979, although they tried, most of those works had disintegrated.
In 1972, for the Slap Shot event at the Véhicule ArtE gallery, he turned the space into a makeshift hockey rink, and documents recall he tried to get attendees to throw paint with their sticks to make a collective painting. Something went wrong and, in the end, they preferred throwing pucks at a makeshift goalkeeper.
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As promised, for 10 years he only painted with the three colours of the team, and from that time are some of his most striking works, such as a serigraphy dedicated to hot dogs, in which he draws with three strokes of colour the supposed sausage sandwich. On one side he wrote, as a scribble, the recipe to prepare it. Incidentally, he says that that day November 28, 1975, he ate four hot dogs and passed them with a Coca-Cola.
According to the website of his heirs, during the Saint-Jean-Baptiste party in 1979 in Acton Vale, the parade of friends and onlookers ended at the doors of Lemoyne's house, where he hung several paintings from his Bleu-Blanc-Rouge series on the second-floor gallery. The entire city came together for the exhibition, which aimed to mark the official end of the decade.
From that incredibly rich era, the Museum in Montreal presents what is perhaps the most representative work: Dryden is a ghostly image of the Canadiens' goalie mask, in white, red, and blue, with the paint dripping freely downward as if be it blood or sweat.
It is obviously dedicated to goaltender Kenneth “Ken” Wayne Dryden. For those unfamiliar with hockey history, Dryden played eight seasons in the NHL, always with the Montreal Canadiens, and retired at the age of 31 after leading the team to win six Stanley Cup Championships. The number 29 jersey he wore was removed from the list in 2007 so that no other player could wear that number. After retiring, Dryden was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, elected as a Liberal MP, and received the Order of Canada.
Even though he already considered himself established, Lemoyne remained a very active artist. In 1984, he still participated in public events that could create provocations and a break with the traditions and even ran at legislative elections for the sarcastic Rhinocéros party.
Dozens of stories in the galleries
Riopelle and Lemoyne are just two of the dozens of artists featured in the museum on Sherbrooke Street, men and women who have contributed their talent and virtuosity since the earliest times of Quebec's history. The visit can begin in the highest part of the museum, with the Inuit art sculptures, and descend through the rooms that cover the classical periods (1700-1870), the era of the academic art salons (1880-1920), the novelty of modernism (1920-1960), until reaching the Champs Libres (1960-1970).
There are works of Alfred Laliberté (1877-1953), Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté (1969-1937), Louis Philippe Hébert (1850-1917), Marc-Aurèle Fortin (1888-1970), Lilias Torrance Newton (1896-1980), Paul Emile Borduas (1905-1960), Louis Archambault (1915-2003), Lisette Lemieux (1943), Michael Flomen (1952) and Nicolas Baier (1967).
The pavilion can be covered in about two hours, and now that tickets are sold in advance and are limited, the experience with fewer people is comfortable and bearable. At the end of the tour, there is a bookstore where books, postcards, posters, and gifts with the museum's motifs are offered.
By the way, if someone was intrigued by the interesting experiences of Riopelle and Lemoyne, they should also investigate the fascinating and somewhat dramatic life of Marc-Aurèle Fortin. He was an extraordinary painter of landscapes and urban scenes, and according to those who lived with him, he led a more than bohemian life in a house he had on Saint Urbain Street, near Laurier. In the museum, there is a small room dedicated to his works.
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal
1380, rue Sherbrooke Ouest
Montréal (Québec) H3G 1J5
Monday closed
All the pavilions are accessible and adaptable for people in wheelchairs (toilets, elevators).