Automatistes, Les

Automatistes, Les. A radical group of Canadian abstract painters active in Montreal from 1946 to about 1954; the name was taken from their interest in automatism deriving from Surrealism. The dominant figure was Paul-Émile Borduas, who was appreciably older than the other six original members: Marcel Barbeau (1925– ), Roger Fauteux (1920– ), Pierre Gauvreau (1922– ), Fernand Leduc (1916– ), Jean-Paul Mousseau (1927– ), and Jean-Paul Riopelle. Five of these ( Borduas, Gauvreau, Leduc, Mousseau, and Riopelle) had exhibited together in New York in January 1946, and all seven first showed their work as a group in an office lent by Gauvreau's mother on Amherst Street, Montreal, in April of that year. This was the first exhibition by a group of abstract artists to be held in Canada. In 1948 the group published Refus global (‘Total Refusal'), an anarchic manifesto attacking various aspects of Canadian life and culture, including the Church. Borduas was largely responsible for this document, which expressed his commitment to a free and creative life. It caused outrage and has been described as ‘the single most important social document in Quebec history and the most important aesthetic statement a Canadian has ever made’ ( Dennis Reid, A Concise History of Canadian Painting, 1973). Two group exhibitions were held after this, in 1951 and 1954, but by the time of the first, Leduc and Riopelle were living in Europe and the group identity was breaking up.