Paul-Émile Borduas

Composition 11, ca 1957. Exhibited Dec. 2011 at the Big Bang exhibition Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal

Paul-Émile Borduas (November 1, 1905 – February 22, 1960) was a Canadian artist known for his abstract paintings. He was the leader of the avant-garde Automatiste movement and the chief author of the Refus Global manifesto of 1948. Borduas had a profound impact on the development of the arts and of thought, both in the province of Quebec and in Canada. In his teens, Borduas met church painter and decorator Ozias Leduc, and Leduc agreed to take the young artist as an apprentice. Leduc provided Borduas with basic artistic training, teaching him how to restore and decorate churches. Leduc arranged for Borduas' instruction at the École Technique, in 1919, in Sherbrooke, Quebec. In 1923, assisted by a scholarship Leduc had secured for him, he enrolled in the École des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, continuing to work for Leduc at the same time. He received prizes for his paintings at both of these institutions. Despite discord between Borduas and the school administration, he continued his studies at Leduc's urgings. A second Montreal exhibit followed in February–March 1947. A critic, responding to this exhibit, coined the name "Automatists" for the group, after Borduas' painting Automatisme 1.47.

Borduas wrote Refus Global (or "Total Refusal", anglicized) in late 1947–early 1948. It was circulated in a folder that contained other Automatists' writings. This piece was originally intended to accompany an Automatist showing, but it was actually distributed alone. Refus Global served as an important manifesto that advocated the separation of church and state in Quebec, especially for the arts. In it Borduas "denounces the forces of oppression that had made of Quebec a suffocating environment, hostile to both individual and collective creativity".

Four hundred copies of the manifesto went on sale August 9, 1948. Borduas was dismissed from l'École du Meuble on September 2 as a direct result of his involvement in this social critique. Even those who had tired of the repressive Duplessis régime, and advocated great social changes in Quebec, were reluctant to back Borduas' thorough condemnation of the Catholic Church —such a central influence on the French Canadian populace.

Borduas was ostracized and found himself unable to find a job, which was especially difficult as he was by now a father. He decided to take matters into his own hands. Borduas produced another piece in his defence, Projections Libérantes ("Liberating Projections"), which he completed in February 1949. Unfortunately, this more moderate composition, which clearly communicated Borduas' intentions in releasing Refus Global, was not enthusiastically received by the public or the presses. However, despite early denouncements, the manifesto marked the beginning of profound social change in Quebec and signalled the dawn of the Quiet Revolution.

In 1953, Borduas moved to New York, where he saw the works of Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, and Mark Rothko and began to use the palette knife to apply his paint. In 1955, he moved back to Paris where he died of a heart attack in 1960.

In 1954, works by Borduas, along with those of B. C. Binning and Jean-Paul Riopelle, represented Canada at the Venice Biennale. In 1955, he represented Canada at the 3rd Bienal de São Paulo. In 1960, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam gave him the posthumous exhibition, «Borduas 1905–1960» . In 1988 the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts gave him an enormous retrospective exhibition curated by François-Marc Gagnon.

In May 2012, his painting Froissement Multicolore sold for $663,750 at auction, surpassing the artist's previous auction price record by $150,000.

In May 2018, Borduas' important 1956 canvas Figures schématiques shattered the previous record for the artist's work at auction and sold for $3,601,250 at the Heffel Fine Art Auction House spring live auction.

Recognition and honors Since 1977, the Prix du Québec in visual arts is named: Prix Paul-Émile-Borduas. On May 22, 1981 Canada Post issued 'Paul-Émile Borduas, Untitled No. 6' designed by Pierre Fontaine. The stamps were based on a painting "Sans titre no 6", circa 1957 by Paul-Émile Borduas, in the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Montréal, Quebec. The 35¢ stamps are perforated 13.5 and were printed by British American Bank Note Company. 1998, Prix Condorcet to All signatories of Refus Global. 2024, The Government of Canada recognized Paul-Émile Borduas as a "person of national historic significance"