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Paul-Émile Borduas
Madame Gagnon
Artist
Paul-Émile Borduas
Saint-Hilaire, Quebec, 1905 – Paris 1960
Title
Madame Gagnon
Date
1941
Materials
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
48.2 x 43.2 cm
Credits
Purchase, gift of the Joseph-Arthur Simard family, inv. 1972.23
Collection
Quebec and Canadian Art
This portrait was a companion piece to a Portrait of Maurice Gagnon, also from 1941, that no longer exists. Borduas and his wife were close to the Gagnons at the time this painting was made. Mrs. Gagnon, who had studied philosophy, was particularly helpful to Borduas at a point in his life when he was preoccupied with religious and metaphysical questions. Something of the intensity of their discussions can be sensed in this portrait, in which the sitter's broad shoulders seem to symbolize spiritual strength.
© Estate of Paul-Émile Borduas / SOCAN (2020)
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