The Quebec and Canadian Art Collection is Enriched by Several Significant Drawings
Wyatt Eaton (1849-1896), Noon‑day Rest, 1884, charcoal, white chalk, 31.2 x 41.7 cm. MMFA, purchase, Denise Meloche Estate. Photo MMFA, Jean-François Brière
Works of graphic art tend to be less frequently displayed for admiration on our walls than paintings, partly because prolonged exposure would compromise their conservation. The collection of these works is nonetheless important for reasons that go beyond their aesthetic value. For example, a preparatory drawing or a final sketch can help document the stages of creation of a major work; a drawing made in the context of an artist’s training can deepen our understanding of their body of work; but also, and above all, there is often a great freshness to these works that stems from a fluidity and expressiveness in the drawing, and many artists have certainly enjoyed producing them. The Museum therefore continues to enrich its graphic arts collection year after year. This article presents a number of recent acquisitions of Quebec and Canadian art.
Jacques Des Rochers
Wyatt Eaton: Noon-day Rest
Wyatt Eaton was a close friend of the French painter Jean-François Millet. Several of his works are strongly inspired by the Barbizon School and the peasant imagery prevalent in Millet’s work. This is the case with Harvesters at Rest, Eaton’s first painting of note, produced between 1874 and 1876. This work was shown at the Paris Salon in 1876 and then at the annual exhibition of the National Academy of Design in New York in 1877, where it was very well received. This prompted Eaton to move to New York to teach drawing and painting. While there, he became a sought-after portraitist.
Wyatt Eaton (1849-1896), Harvesters at Rest, 1876, oil on canvas, 114.9 x 147.3 cm. Smith College Museum of Art (Northampton, Massachusetts), gift of Robert McEwen Woods in memory of his mother Frances B. Woods
Between 1880 and 1892, the artist exhibited several genre scenes at the Art Association of Montreal (the AAM, now the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts), housed in its first permanent location in Phillips Square. These works helped introduce Millet and the Barbizon School style, which were yet unknown in Canada, and were greatly appreciated by Montreal’s elite society. In 1884, Eaton returned to France, where he produced one of his most celebrated paintings, Noon-day Rest. Presented at the AAM in 1886, it was donated to the association in 1889 by the chairman of its board, the collector R. B. Angus. Since then, it has been on near-permanent display in the Museum’s galleries.
Wyatt Eaton (1849-1896), Noon‑day Rest, 1884, oil on canvas, 90.3 x 117.2 cm. MMFA, gift of R. B. Angus. Photo MMFA, Christine Guest
Much later, in 1951, the MMFA was offered a preparatory sketch for Noon-day Rest, titled Study of the Head of a Peasant Woman. More recently, an opportunity arose to acquire an unknown drawing that is virtually identical in composition to the painting. Although it tells us little about the work’s evolution, its small size and charcoal strokes with white chalk highlights allow us to appreciate Eaton’s talent for drawing. It may also reflect a desire on the part of the artist to create a print version of the painting to sell it more widely, or perhaps to offer another model on the market.
Wyatt Eaton (1849-1896), study of the Head of a Peasant Woman for Noon‑day Rest, about 1884, graphite, 22.4 x 20.9 cm. MMFA, gift of R. G. Mathews. Photo MMFA, Christine Guest
Wyatt Eaton (1849-1896), Noon‑day Rest, 1884, charcoal, white chalk, 31.2 x 41.7 cm. MMFA, purchase, Denise Meloche Estate. Photo MMFA, Jean-François Brière
Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté: Two nude studies
The quality of the nudes produced by Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté during the 1920s reflects a rigorous apprenticeship rooted in the academic tradition of the study of the live model. At the time, this was a rite of passage that saw many Canadian artists head to Europe to pursue their training. This is how Suzor-Coté arrived in Paris in March 1891. He immediately set about his goal of gaining admission to the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts (ENSBA) by enrolling in the Académie Colarossi. He was admitted to the atelier of Léon Bonnat, the famous professor of drawing and painting at the ENSBA, on June 22, 1891. In 1892, the Montreal press announced that the artist had won a drawing competition.1 One of the two nude studies we recently acquired dates from that year.
Marc‑Aurèle de Foy Suzor‑Coté (1869-1937), Nude Study (Male Model, from the Back), 1892, charcoal, 61.5 x 40 cm (approx.). MMFA, gift of Paul Guy Desmarais, Jr. Photo MMFA, Jean-François Brière
Thanks to the awards bestowed on him, Suzor-Coté won the privilege to choose where he wanted to position himself in the studio where the model is posing. By moving closer to the model, he could get a better sense of his subject and frame him as he pleased. This can be clearly seen in our second acquisition, dated 1894. In other academic drawings produced earlier in his career, the model is represented as a whole, sketched from a greater distance. The acquisition of these two nudes that were executed within such a short period is exceptional, as very few of Suzor-Coté’s drawings produced prior to 1900 have been preserved, and the artist concentrated mainly on the study of the female body for the remainder of his career. These two studies also allow us to observe the evolution of Suzor-Coté’s rendering of form, as well as the influence of his training in his work, in particular that received from Bonnat, who favoured “the rendering of the model through chiaroscuro.”2
Marc‑Aurèle de Foy Suzor‑Coté (1869-1937), Nude Study (Male Model, from the Back), 1894, charcoal, stump, 33.2 x 27.2 cm (approx.). MMFA, purchase, Marc‑Aimé Guérin Estate. Photo MMFA, Jean-François Brière
The Death of Cadieux on the Banks of the Ottawa River
Another drawing by Suzor-Coté has also recently entered our collection. It illustrates a scene from the legend of Jean Cadieux, based on real events that occurred on Grand-Calumet Island in the Outaouais region. Cadieux was a coureur des bois, born in Boucherville in 1671. In May 1709, he was wounded while trying to save his fellow travellers, including his wife and a young Algonquin, during an attack by a group of Iroquois. A few days later, exhausted from his hard-fought battle, he succumbed to his injuries. For many years thereafter, a lament in his memory was sung by voyageurs travelling by canoe to the Pays-d’en-Haut.
Marc‑Aurèle de Foy Suzor‑Coté (1869-1937), The Death of Cadieux on the Banks of the Ottawa River, about 1907, charcoal, pastel, 30.8 x 41 cm. MMFA, gift of Geneviève Catherine Myhal in memory of Dr. Monique Camerlain. Photo MBAM, Jean-François Brière
Listen to La complainte de Cadieux sung by Alexandre Belliard.
Lyrics: Jean Cadieux | Music: Alexandre Belliard | Album: Légendes d’un peuple, tome 4 (2016) | With the permission of David Murphy et cie
Well over a century, Louis-Honoré Fréchette wrote a long poem titled “Sur la tombe de Cadieux,” which was published most notably in his collection La légende d'un peuple whose first edition was printed in Paris in 1887. This poem made the author famous and inspired several artists, including Alfred Laliberté and Suzor-Coté, both of whom were pursuing careers in Paris at the time; the former in sculpture and the latter in painting. Upon his return to Montreal in 1907, Suzor-Coté presented an easel painting titled La mort de Cadieux in his first solo exhibition at the W. Scott & Sons Gallery. In 1933, the painting was hung in a gallery dedicated to the artist in the newly opened Musée de la province de Québec (now the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec). It was acquired by this museum in 1952.
Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté (1869-1937), The Death of Cadieux, 1907, oil on canvas, 89.4 x 119.4 cm. Collection of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, purchase MNBAQ. Photo MNBAQ, Jean-Guy Kerouac
Our charcoal and pastel drawing is a preliminary version of the MNBAQ painting. Like this work, it was produced in the brief period (1901-1907) during which Suzor-Coté devoted himself to history painting in Paris. It is also part of a body of preparatory sketches that led to the creation of other important paintings such as The Death of Montcalm (a sketch of which is held at the MMFA) and Jacques Cartier Meeting the Indians at Stadacona, 1535 (MNBAQ).
Marc Aurèle de Foy Suzor Coté (1869-1937), Sketch for The Death of Montcalm, 1902, oil on canvas, 33 x 44.5 cm. MMFA, purchase, Harold Lawson, Marjorie Caverhill, Harry W. Thorpe, William Gilman Cheney, Horsley and Annie Townsend and Mona Prentice Bequests. Photo MMFA, Brian Merrett
1 La Patrie, May 25, 1892, and The Gazette, July 12, 1892, in Laurier Lacroix, Suzor-Coté. Lumière et matière (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada; Quebec City: Musée du Québec; Montreal: Les Éditions de l’Homme, 2002), p. 60.
2 Translated from Lacroix, ibid.
