Gallery Space Devoted to the Artist Marc-Aurèle Fortin

Uprooted tree

In February 2007, the Musée Marc-Aurèle Fortin gave the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts its collection of works by Fortin (1888-1970), as well as personal items that belonged to the artist and archival documents. This notable gift rounds out and significantly enlarges the Museum’s collection of Fortin’s oeuvre and highlights the importance of the artist’s achievements. Nathalie Bondil, Director of the MMFA, announced that gallery space devoted to his work would be open to visitors as of June 20.

The Marc-Aurèle Fortin Gallery Space has been planned to display the finest of the artist’s works from this collection. The earliest work on view, Street Scene, Chicago (about 1910), is a rare sketch executed in that city while the artist was studying at its famous Art Institute. Of the works in the gallery that established his reputation, two canvases, his famous tall trees in Sainte-Rose and a Charlevoix landscape in his “grey manner,” were considered by Fortin himself as being two of his three masterpieces. An overview of Fortin’s life and work is provided by André Gladu’s film Marc-A. Fortin, 1888-1970, which is being screened in the gallery with the generous co-operation of Nanouk Films and Cinéfête.

 

 

Marc-Aurèle Fortin; Uprooted tree; About 1928; Oil on canvas; 86.1 x 91.4 cm. Marc-Aurèle Fortin Museum Collection. © Musée Marc-Aurèle Fortin/SODART 2007. Photo Michel Dubreuil