Canadian Modernist Paul-Émile Borduas

In the past few years, I have become very fond of Canadian modernism, particularly from the early to mid-1900s. Paul-Émile Borduas was a pivotal figure in Canadian art. He bridged modernist tendencies from French art, such as Surrealism, and American abstraction of the New York School. 

Paul-Émile Borduas (1906–1960), Autumn Reception, 1953. Oil on canvas, 39 ½" x 48 ⅛" (100.3 x 122.2 cm). Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, New York. © 2025 Estate of Paul-Émile Borduas / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. (AK-980bsars)

After seeing works by American Abstract Expressionists at an exhibition in Montréal in 1950, Borduas’s work began to take on the drip aesthetic of Jackson Pollock (1912–1956). In 1953, he spent a summer at the Hans Hofmann School in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where he produced forty canvases. Later that same year, he moved to New York City. There he began producing works that took on an all-over aesthetic as opposed to his earlier works of abstract shapes floating in surreal space. Works like Autumn Reception have an enlivened surface. The distinction between object and ground is greatly diminished in the flurry of both drips and areas worked with palette knife. Works from this period continued Borduas’s attention to textured surface. He had an ongoing interest in integrating all of the forms in the composition into a single, exciting visual experience.

When the Dominion of Canada formed and the country became self-governing in 1867, many Canadian artists advocated for a distinctly Canadian style of painting. They wanted to be free from academic European—and, by that time, American—influences. In 1920, a group of landscape painters, mostly from Ontario, formed the Group of Seven, also known as the Algonquin Group. These artists aimed to develop a unique Canadian painting style that was a combination of brilliant color and scenes of the Canadian wilderness. During the 1920s and 1930s, however, many Canadian artists began to reject nationalist approaches in their work and embraced abstract and nonobjective art influenced by European modernism. They viewed both genres as ways to explore symbolism and mysticism. The Eastern Group of Painters, founded in 1938 in Montréal, Québec, similarly espoused art for art’s sake. These non-nationalist, modernist independents had a great impact on the generation of artists that matured after World War II (1939–1945).

Canadian artists increasingly adopted international modernist trends in art after World War II. The variety of styles and art forms expanded considerably. Groups such as Painters Eleven (active between 1953 and 1960) promoted abstract art. In the 2000s, Canadian art has flourished in all of the progressive international tendencies in contemporary art. There is also growing representation from the many multicultural Indigenous communities that make up Canada.

Borduas was born in Saint-Hilaire, which is east of Montréal in the province of Québec. At age sixteen, he was apprenticed to a church decorator painter. The painter eventually convinced Borduas to enroll at the School of Fine Arts in Montréal, which he attended from 1923 to 1927. At the School of Fine Arts, Borduas became dissatisfied with the conservative academic curriculum. After graduating, he taught drawing in Montréal. Between 1928 and 1930, Borduas studied religious painting in Paris. Because he was exposed to the current strains of French modernism such as Cubism, he did not follow a path of church decoration, but returned to Canada.

After returning to Canada, Borduas took on a teaching position at the School of Furniture and Cabinet-Making in Montréal in 1937. His epiphany year was 1938, when he learned about Surrealism and read the writings of its greatest advocate, André Breton (1896–1966). He became obsessed with Surrealism’s emphasis on working on art without preconceived ideas (i.e., automatically). Like-minded artists and students who were also interested in abstraction and automatism joined Borduas in forming the artists’ group Les Automatistes (The Automatists). He began experimenting with total abstraction in 1942.

In New York, Borduas experienced the art of some of the Abstract Expressionists such as Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline (1910–1962), and Mark Rothko (1904–1970). It was after seeing their work that Borduas began to use palette knives exclusively in his painting. He had his first exhibition two weeks after he arrived in New York and secured on-going gallery representation there. Despite his success in New York, Borduas moved to Paris in 1955 to broaden the acceptance of his abstractions. He found gallery success there in 1959, the year before his death.

Correlations to Davis programs: Explorations in Art 2E Kindergarten: 1.6, 1.8, 1.9, 1.10, 5.4; Explorations in Art 2E Grade 4: 6.7; A Community Connection 2E: p. 171; Experience Art: 6.2; The Visual Experience 4E: 4.1, 4.2; Discovering Drawing 3E: pp.114–115