55/150: Marc-Aurèle Fortin – ‘A kind of Merlin’

It’s hard to resist the colors, depth and storybook-like compositions of Québécois artist Marc-Aurèle Fortin (1888 -1970).

Best known for paintings that convey the charm of small-town Quebec, he was a painter, watercolourist, printmaker and draughtsman whose highly decorative, colourful landscapes celebrate the picturesque in nature.

It’s the modern attitude in his paintings that separates Fortin from his contemporaries, the National Gallery of Canada notes. “Technically proficient and highly creative, he employed a remarkable harmony of colour that resonated like music, making him a master of his own poetic vision of painting.”

Fortin was technically inventive, experimenting with methods of watercolour, oil painting and mixed media. He varied the background colors of his landscapes as he tried different ways of capturing the light peculiar to Quebec. He traveled by bike.

In his later years, Fortin participated in numerous international exhibitions and held solo exhibitions at the Musée du Québec (1944), in Almelo, Netherlands (1948), the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (1954), and at the National Gallery of Canada (1963).

Fortin won the Jessie Dow prize from the Art Association of Montreal (1938), a bronze medal at the New York World’s Fair (1939), and was an Associate of the Royal Canadian Academy.  

Beginning in 1955, Fortin suffered declining health, losing both legs to diabetes. He stopped painting for seven years, eventually resuming work from a wheelchair. In 1967, he moved to a sanatorium in Macamic, in the Abitibi region. By the time he died at the age of 82, he had produced an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 works, many of which were lost over the years to fire or unscrupulous dealers.

Marc-Aurèle Fortin the Alan Klinkhoff Gallery

At the National Gallery of Canada

Note: Much more information via the weblink in the cutline of each image. .

This is #55 in the series 150 Artists, an ongoing series on Canadian artists you should know.