Alfred Pellan In the Studio

By means of an astonishing and participatory space inspired by the studio of the Québec master Alfred Pellan (1906-1988), this exhibition highlighted Pellan’s creative process and sources of inspiration as well as the countless facets of his exceptional career spanning almost half a century. Paintings in a rich range of colours, a wide variety of graphic and pictorial experiments, transformed objects and personal documents, in many cases never before seen publicly, presented a wealth of opportunities for visitors to be touched, fascinated and amused by the whimsical imagination and creativity of a remarkable artist.

Thanks to an exceptional bequest of more than 1,000 art and archival objects from Pellan’s studio by his wife, the late Madeleine Poliseno-Pelland, in 2010, the MNBAQ is now the largest depositary of his work in Québec. This generous contribution inspired this exhibition, the first on such a scale in 20 years.

The album accompanying the exhibition highlights the creative process, sources of inspiration and working techniques of one of the most important painters in the history of Québec. A veritable invitation to penetrate the privacy of the artist’s studio, it includes more than a hundred drawings, paintings, photographs and personal documents, most of them previously unpublished, coming as they do from this remarkable bequest to the Musée by his wife. This original and moving face-to-face encounter enabled visitors to discover the prodigious imagination and effervescent inventiveness of this out-of-the-ordinary artist.