François-Marc Gagnon
Author
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.
Online Art Books
Essays
Jean Paul Riopelle’s break with Automatism
By François-Marc Gagnon
The pioneering work of New France priest Louis Nicolas
By François-Marc Gagnon
Unsuccessful as a missionary, Louis Nicolas created an invaluable visual record of New France
By François-Marc Gagnon
Paul-Émile Borduas’s Refus Global began a revolution
By François-Marc GagnonJean Paul Riopelle’s break with Automatism
By François-Marc GagnonThe pioneering work of New France priest Louis Nicolas
By François-Marc GagnonUnsuccessful as a missionary, Louis Nicolas created an invaluable visual record of New France
By François-Marc GagnonPaul-Émile Borduas’s Refus Global began a revolution
By François-Marc GagnonSpotlights
In Pavane, 1954 by Jean Paul Riopelle, the artist pays homage to the great Impressionist painter, Claude Monet, and his beloved water lilies.
By François-Marc Gagnon
Paul-Émile Borduas’s first entirely non-preconceived painting was Green Abstraction, 1941
By François-Marc Gagnon
Louis Nicolas’s, Birds, n.d., captures the natural world
By François-Marc Gagnon
Painted in Paris, Blossoming, 1956, reveals Paul-Émile Borduas’s American style
By François-Marc Gagnon
Critics at the time struggled to understand Paul-Émile Borduas’s Study for Torso or No. 14, 1942
By François-Marc Gagnon
Why Louis Nicolas depicted Unicorn of the Red Sea, n.d., in his seventeenth-century drawing of the new world
By François-Marc Gagnon
Why Paul-Émile Borduas’s The Black Star, 1957, is an abstract masterpiece
By François-Marc Gagnon
In drawings like Plants, Louis Nicolas recorded the early days of colonial contact in New France
By François-Marc GagnonIn Pavane, 1954 by Jean Paul Riopelle, the artist pays homage to the great Impressionist painter, Claude Monet, and his beloved water lilies.
By François-Marc GagnonPaul-Émile Borduas’s first entirely non-preconceived painting was Green Abstraction, 1941
By François-Marc GagnonLouis Nicolas’s, Birds, n.d., captures the natural world
By François-Marc GagnonPainted in Paris, Blossoming, 1956, reveals Paul-Émile Borduas’s American style
By François-Marc GagnonCritics at the time struggled to understand Paul-Émile Borduas’s Study for Torso or No. 14, 1942
By François-Marc GagnonWhy Louis Nicolas depicted Unicorn of the Red Sea, n.d., in his seventeenth-century drawing of the new world
By François-Marc GagnonWhy Paul-Émile Borduas’s The Black Star, 1957, is an abstract masterpiece
By François-Marc GagnonIn drawings like Plants, Louis Nicolas recorded the early days of colonial contact in New France
By François-Marc Gagnon