Oil on panel by Marc-Aurèle Fortin – Untitled – Circa 1920 – Forest and Sky

Original artwork by Marc-Aurèle Fortin – Untitled circa 1920 – Forest and Sky

(Depicting a sunset)

Oil on panel signed by the artist on the lower right

The work is framed and fitted with a period passe-partout from the fine arts gallery.

Dimensions: 15 x 21 cm – 6 x 8.5 in. – with frame: 33 x 44.5 cm – 14.5 x 17.5 in.

Provenance: Private collection since 1968 at Ville Mont-Royal, Québec, Canada

Price: 7 000,00 $ CAD (Canadian dollar) – For more information on artist or artwork contact gallery

The painting was appraised by Galerie Valentin in 2019.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Valentin declared the work authentic, and the work is listed in the catalogue raisonné under No. H-1128

The artwork comes also with a receipt of purchase in 1968 – Atelier XXe siècle – Ville de Brossard

Back to artists page

Home page

Marc-Aurèle FORTIN (1888 – 1970)

Marc-Aurèle Fortin was born on March 14, 1888, in Sainte-Rose, Laval, Quebec. His mother, Amanda Fortier, and his father, Thomas Fortin, a lawyer and future judge and Liberal MP, had fifteen children, but seven of them died in infancy.

Fortin took his first drawing and painting classes at the Catholic Commercial Academy of Montreal and at the Monument-National between 1901 and 1904. In 1909, he decided to continue his artistic training by enrolling at the Chicago Art Institute, but he only stayed there for two semesters. He returned to Montreal in 1910 and found a job as a postal clerk. In his free time, he painted. He was searching for a different interpretation of Quebec’s nature that would capture the soul of his country.

Starting in the 1920s, the artist finally developed a new style. The giant elms that shaded Quebec’s country roads held a strange fascination for him, as did the poplars and maples with their immense branches. He chose to depict them, paying particular attention to their vibrant foliage, which he detailed over a large portion of his canvas. This gave birth to his first paintings in his series known as “Tall Trees.” Around the same time, he painted his lyrical watercolors of trees perforated like sponges in flamboyant colors. He would later create numerous landscapes of Laval and northern Montreal in this style, as well as views of the Port of Montreal from Île Sainte-Hélène. In the second half of the 1920s, Fortin began creating splendid, pure watercolors. Using this technique, he painted numerous rural landscapes, as well as views of the city of Montreal, which was undergoing major transformation: the Hochelaga district, which was becoming urbanized, and the Port of Montreal, which was becoming industrialized and expanding eastward. He also produced his first etchings from these urban landscapes in 1930.

By the end of the 1920s, Fortin was beginning to enjoy an enviable reputation among critics and other cultural figures. He exhibited regularly, and his works were generally well-reviewed, sometimes even appearing in newspapers. In 1930, the National Gallery of Canada was the first museum to acquire one of his works, a watercolour depicting Hochelaga. This was followed by the Art Gallery of Toronto (now the Art Gallery of Ontario) in 1935, and then the Musée de la province de Québec (now the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec) in 1937.

In November 1933, Fortin traveled to France for nearly four months. Upon his return, he declared that the future of painting lay in America. However, his style had changed. Fortin then revealed his innovative spirit by developing a technique that consisted of painting on gray backgrounds “to describe the warm atmosphere of Quebec skies” and on black backgrounds to “intensifie the relationship between shadow and light.” The resulting works were noted by critics for their decorative qualities, which often distanced them from realistic representation, even, in some cases, bordering on abstraction.

In 1936, the painter began a series of summer trips that took him to the Quebec City region and Île d’Orléans, then to Charlevoix. In the early 1940s, Fortin was drawn to the Gaspé Peninsula, and in the second half of the decade, to the Saguenay. From all these regions, he brought back a large number of watercolors, creating numerous variations of them in his studio.

Always seeking to renew himself and experiment with different techniques, Fortin also devoted himself to drawing and exploited the possibilities of pastel, charcoal and color pencils. At the end of the 1930s, he began to enhance his watercolors with charcoal, Conté pencil and pastel to create what are called his mixed watercolors, finally at the end of the 1940s, the artist discovered casein (a type of milk-based tempera) whose fluidity he exploited on large wooden supports.

Fortin was at the height of his talent and continued to receive recognition from the Quebec art community during this period. In 1938, he won the Jessie Dow Prize; in 1942, he was made an associate member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts; from 1943, he was represented by the L’Art français gallery, which was responsible for the sale and promotion of his works. He was also the subject of sections in several significant works on Canadian painting.

In the early 1950s, felt getting older and increasingly affected by poorly treated diabetes, the painter decided to hire Albert Archambault to manage his studio. In 1955, he appointed him as his agent and authorized representative or attorney. He then entrusted numerous works to his care, which were either sold at rock-bottom prices or thrown away indiscriminately. The master, who was in no way a manufacturer, was even forced by his “manager” to pick up his brushes again. But he painted without the conviction and passion that had previously driven him.

Having lost both legs and been nearly blind, the artist was completely dependent on Archambault, who kept him in appalling conditions. In 1966, journalists learned of Fortin’s pitiful condition, and scandal erupted: “Not yet dead, vultures are already fighting over the inheritance of the great painter Marc-Aurèle Fortin” and “Millionaire Marc-Aurèle Fortin is trapped in poverty in Sainte-Rose,” ran the newspaper headlines.

In 1967, taking advantage of the fact that Archambault’s assets were about to be seized for unpaid debts, René Buisson, a friend and collector of the painter, went to his home and managed to free him from his agent. He then transported him to Macamic in Abitibi, where he was treated in a sanatorium. Marc-Aurèle Fortin died peacefully on March 2, 1970.

Sources: Wikipedia, Marc-Aurèle Fortin Foundation and the National Gallery of Canada