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Canada's Got Treasures!

Artist in Montreal

This short film introduces us to the "automatistes," followers of an abstract art form that developed in Montreal. The movement, initiated by Paul-Émile Borduas, is explained by the artists themselves when narrator Bruce Ruddick drops in at their cooperative studio. The film also captures painter Paterson Ewen at his home and joins the crowd at L'Échouerie, the artists' rendezvous spot. Dr. Robert Hubbard, chief curator of the National Gallery of Canada, comments on non-objective art in general and automatism in particular.

Grade 10 - 12

Arts Education / Visual Arts

Geography / Territory: Urban

History / Canada 1946-1991

Educational purpose:

What is automatism? Provide examples of Riopelle and Borduas’s work for the students to study and create a definition based on the similarities. Provide materials for them to experiment in the same style. How does this style of art reflect the times or Montreal at that time? Examine contemporary art styles and analyze according to the social/political/cultural climate in which they were created.


 

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Comments

  • Ponkus

    Ponkus

      “This movie is great. I love that unctuous narrator, towering over people, occasionally misunderstanding completely what he's being told, but unfailingly gracious and polite, as when he bids a roomful of artists good night and drifts from the room still clutching his microphone. ”

    1 Feb 2010

On the NFB.ca blog  rss

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