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 Jerome, Denis Juneau, Fernand Leduc, Guido Molinari, Fernand Toupin, and Claude Tousignant.

An eminent art historian and the former chief curator at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Roald Nasgaard is the author of the critically acclaimed books The Mystic North, Abstract Painting in Canada, and The Automatiste Revolution. He lives in Toronto. Michel Martin was the curator of contemporary art at the Musee National des Beaux-Arts du Quebec from 1978 to 2008. He lives in Montreal.