Paul-Émile Borduas: A Critical Biography by François-Marc Gagnon (review)

It is not at all uncommon for once spurned artists to end up in their nation’s cultural pantheon. Even so, it is a little extraordinary that just thirty years elapsed between Paul-Emile Borduas provoking outrage in Quebec with Refus global (and suffering the consequences) and the creation of the prestigious prize named after him. What’s more, there’s a certain poetic justice in the fact that Refus global is, with hindsight, seen as a defining moment in the immense sociopolitical shift that would shortly allow for Borduas’s apotheosis. But, of course, Borduas’s reputation does not rest solely on his challenging manifesto. His most potent legacy is his paintings, especially perhaps the iconic black and white paintings done in Paris immediately before his death in 1960.

Gagnon’s handsome book is an updated, revised and translated version of one first published in 1978. (The elegant, sensitive translation is by Peter Feldstein.) As the most eminent scholar of Borduas and the Automatiste movement, and with a lifetime of published research behind him, Gagnon has brought to his study an intimate knowledge not only of the artist’s work but also of his correspondence and other writings. This enables him to provide compelling insight into the development of Borduas’s ideas and theories, and into his state of mind. The study is well illustrated. However, it does not purport to be a catalogue raisonné. In a move that is undoubtedly a sign of our times, the reader is invited to go to http://borduascatalog.org to view those paintings discussed or alluded to in the text but not reproduced there.

As Gagnon indicates in his introduction, Borduas’s career was characterised by clearly definable periods. It was, then, logical to structure his biography around these. So, part I deals with Borduas’s figurative period (beginning with church decoration); part II with his Automatiste period (including the publication of Refus global); part III his New York period; part IV his Parisian period. This structure underpins the clarity and coherence that are typical of the volume as a whole. Gagnon marshals his richly detailed material with poise and intelligence. While rightly sympathetic to the artist, his insights always retain a proper objectivity. Nowhere is this more evident than in the sections he devotes to Refus global and its aftermath. These are among the most lucid and illuminating pages I have ever read on the subject (even if the sociopolitical contextualisation might have been usefully expanded to include the roughly contemporaneous, and symbolically significant, Asbestos Strike).

As befits a critical biography, much attention is given to Borduas’s art itself. Gagnon is especially good at demonstrating how it evolves over time. He exhibits an impressive familiarity with a huge number of paintings. However, while his readings are tersely articulate, they lack the wit and spontaneity of the works being described and I occasionally wished for a more visceral response to them. The book’s price and its sheer scholarliness will probably limit its readership to a minority. That said, it is a superb study that will long remain essential reading for all students of Borduas and his times.