François-Marc Gagnon

François-Marc Gagnon (1935–2019) was one of Canada’s most respected and prolific art historians. He focused on two areas in particular: early Canadian art, especially the painters and sculptors of New France; and the 1940s–50s, writing on Paul-Émile Borduas, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Guido Molinari, and the automatist movement, among others.

After a long career in art history at the Université de Montréal, Gagnon was the director of the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art at Concordia University. In recognition of his contribution to Canadian art, Gagnon has been awarded many prizes, including the Raymond Klibansky Prize (2000), the Prix Gérard-Morisset (2010), and, with Nancy Senior and Réal Ouellet, the Canada Prize in the Humanities (2013). In 1999 he was honoured with the Order of Canada, and in 2015 with the Ordre national du Québec.