Françoise Sullivan was born in Montreal, where she received her early training at the École des beaux-arts. She is a unique and multi-faceted artist. Well known at the outset of her career as a dancer and choreographer, it has been her work as a painter, sculptor and photographer that has truly marked her long career. She was one of the Automatists, the avant-garde movement led by Paul-Émile Borduas, and was a signatory of the group’s 1948 manifesto, Refus Global. Since then, her work has been shown at countless different solo and group exhibitions, including retrospectives at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (1993) and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (2003).
She received the Paul-Émile Borduas Award in 1987 and holds honorary degrees from UQAM and Toronto’s York University. A teacher at Concordia University since 1977, Françoise Sullivan is also a board member of the Montreal Arts Council and remains in demand as a jury member and lecturer.
Artwork description
On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of this essential figure in Quebec visual art, MU produced the tallest mural in Montreal ever created in homage to Françoise Sullivan: nearly 21,000 square feet (300 feet high by 81 feet wide) in the heart of downtown, on the wall of the Hyatt Hotel, at the corner Sainte-Catherine / Saint-Hubert. The model of the mural was designed with Françoise Sullivan, and is inspired by several of her works from the Les Damiers series.
It is produced by the talented MU team, composed of Benjamin Tran, Diane Roe, Jenna Schwartz, Marianne Blondeau-D’Amour and Nikki Küntzle, under the supervision of the two artists responsible for the project Arnaud Grégoire and Julien Sicre. Sullivan seeks in her paintings the emotion of the moment experienced intensely, seeking to awaken this sensation of self in an ephemeral moment, a painting effect reinforced by her expressive brushstrokes and her preference for large format paintings which immerse the viewer in her artistic universe. This effect was recreated on the mural by our artists in honor of Sullivan’s techniques.
It is the 30th mural in the Bâtisseur·e·s culturel·le·s montréalais·es collection, initiated by MU in 2010 and aimed at highlighting the invaluable contribution of the metropolis’s creators from different artistic disciplines, whether they are Montrealers by origin or by adoption, to the local, national and international influence of the Montreal cultural scene.