Paul-Émile Borduas was a Québecois artist known for his abstract paintings. He was the leader of the avant-garde Automatiste movement and the chief author of the Refus Global manifesto of 1948. Borduas had a profound impact on the development of the arts and of thought, both in the province of Quebec and in Canada.
Paul-Émile Borduas
Paul-Émile Borduas
Place Paul-Émile Borduas seen from rue Saint-Denis, ending at the Quèbec National Library and Archives
Composition 11, ca 1957. Exhibited Dec. 2011 at the Big Bang exhibition Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal
Les Automatistes were a group of Québécois artistic dissidents from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The movement was founded in the early 1940s by painter Paul-Émile Borduas. Les Automatistes were so called because they were influenced by Surrealism and its theory of automatism. Members included Marcel Barbeau, Roger Fauteux, Claude Gauvreau, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Pierre Gauvreau, Fernand Leduc, Jean-Paul Mousseau, Guy Borremans, Marcelle Ferron and Françoise Sullivan.
Exhibition of the Automatistes, 1947 Claude Gauvreau, Julienne Gauvreau, Pierre Gauvreau, Marcel Barbeau, Madeleine Arbour, Paul-Émile Borduas, Madeleine Lalonde, Bruno Cormier and Jean-Paul Mousseau