Scott, Brandtner, Eveleigh, Webber: revisiting Montreal abstraction from the 1970s

Publication date: September 1, 2022

This work was produced as part of the exhibition Forgotten! Scott, Brandtner, Eveleigh, Webber: Revisiting Montreal Abstraction of the 1940s , presented at the Musée d'art de Joliette from October 15, 2022 to January 15, 2023.

It highlights the contribution of four little-known or poorly known artists – one woman and three men – who participated in the aesthetic ruptures that led to abstraction in Montreal in the 1940s. Marian Dale Scott, Fritz Brandtner, Henry Eveleigh and Gordon Webber, who were prominent in the art world of that decade, caught the attention of critics for whom the term “abstract art” referred to both a non-objective work and a bold formal exploration that could retain some references to the outside world.

The analysis of the production of these artists reveals astonishing openness to the currents of international contemporary art in France, Germany, Britain and the United States. Their works and their critical reception paint a complex portrait of the debates surrounding abstraction in Montreal in the 1940s, which were often reduced to the sole controversies surrounding the advent of automatism. Certainly, the radical nature of the approach of the artists around Paul-Émile Borduas and the publication, in 1948, of their Refus global in some way established the group as the "abstract avant-garde" in Quebec; however, this had the consequence of obscuring other visions of abstraction that were being expressed at the time.

In this book, Esther Trépanier restores the place of the works of these forgotten people in the adventure of abstract art and shows how their approaches also confront different issues: those of emotion, science, human experience in the broad sense, but also, in the context of the Second World War, those of the violence of their time.

About the author

Professor emeritus in the Department of Art History at UQAM since 1981, Esther Trépanier was Director General of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec from 2008 to 2011 and Director of the École supérieure de mode de Montréal from 2000 to 2007. She is the author of numerous books, exhibition catalogues and articles on Quebec and Canadian art from the first decades of the 20th century and on issues related to modernity. These include, 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 the production of several exhibitions, including Marian Dale Scott. Pioneer of Modern Art (MNBAQ, 2000), Women Artists. The Conquest of a Space: 1900-1965 (MNBAQ, 2009; MAJ, 2010) and Fashion and Appearance in Quebec Painting, 1880-1945 (MNBAQ, 2012).

274 pages

8.6 by 10 inches (21.5 x 25.5 cm)

Glossy soft cover

Texts in French

Legal deposit: September 2022

ISBN 978-2-7606-4632-2