The Entrance to My Studio

Adrien Hébert changed studios inside Montreal’s Quartier Latin quarter a few times, and he painted them as of the 1920s. Here, we see the Place Christin building, a place with a notable past. The flat-dwelling (today on 1238-1246 Saint-Denis Street), which had the studio at the back, was built in 1879 after the plans of artist and architect Napoléon Bourassa, who owned the property until his death in 1916, the same year that Hébert took possession of the studio. His father, Louis-Philippe Hébert – who was an apprentice to Bourassa on the construction of the nearby Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes chapel – did the sculpted allegorical figures over the entrance.


Among the artworks seen here is a painting, hanging on the left wall, in the collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts: Hyman’s Tobacco Store, 1937. An inscription handwritten by the artist on the back of the canvas reads: “The entrance to my studio / you are most welcome / Your friend / Adrien Hébert.”