Automatistes

The Montreal Automatistes are Canadas first abstract artist group. They started painting in the early 1940s. The group included painters, poets, writers and dancers. A group of talented intellectuals that included Paul-Emile Borduas, the leader and teacher of the group and painters: Marcel Barbeau, Pierre Gauvreau, Fernand Leduc, Jean-Paul Mousseau, Marcelle Ferron and Jean-Paul Riopelle.

Several shows were held in Paris and Montreal in the early to mid 1940s of paintings, drawings and sculpture of the Automatiste group. Originally what was to be a show catalogue developed into the most important social document in Canadas history, a loosely bound Manifesto with a cover designed by Riopelle, titled Refus Global or translated in english Total Refusal. The book launch was at the Librairie Tranquille in Montreal on the 9^th. August 1948 in a total edition of 400 copies.     

The artists held deeply felt beliefs in artistic and religious freedom and fought against the stifling politics of Maurice Duplessis and the oppression of the Roman Catholic Church that held an iron grip on Quebec at the time.

The group produced some of the most original work Canada has ever seen. The period of the Automatistes is usually loosely considered to be 1941 to about 1955. Many of the original members continued to work but less as a group after this period and in fact Marcel Barbeau, Fernand Leduc, Pierre Gauvreau and Francoise Sullivan still create powerful abstract paintings today.

Artists that continued the tradition of working in abstraction in the Post-Automatiste period of the late 1950s and early 1960s include: Robert Blair, Ulysse Comtois, Paterson Ewen, Charles Gagnon, Yves Gaucher, Lise Gervais, Rita Letendre, Marcelle Maltais, Henriette Fauteux-Masse, Jean McEwen, Robert Roussil, and others.