The Plasticiens and Beyond: Montreal, 1955-1970

By the mid-1950s, young Montreal artists were turning their backs on the surrealist spontaneity of the Automatistes. Painting in Montreal paralleled the New York pattern of following the “hot” of abstract expression with the “cool” of post-painterly abstraction. But Montreal produced a late modernist practice markedly distinct and independent from New York’s — a movement known as the Plasticiens. Sumptuously illustrated, this volume features 75 paintings by Louis Belzile, Charles Gagnon, Yves Gaucher, Jean Goguen, Jauran (Rodolphe de Repentigny), Jean-Paul Jérôme, Denis Juneau, Fernand Leduc, Guido Molinari, Fernand Toupin, and Claude Tousignant.