A visit to the Musée d'Art de Joliette

I was pleased to visit the Musée d'Art de Joliette for the first time last week, on the occasion of its exhibition, "James Wilson Morrice: The A.K. Prakash Collection in Trust to the Nation".

James Wilson Morrice, Winter (The Pink House), c. 1905-07,
oil on canvas, 61.3 x 50 cm
This is the house of Morrice's family, located at 10 Redpath, Montreal.
The exhibition includes this finished painting
as well as the original small study, seen below.

James Wilson Morrice, study for Winter (The Pink House)
Both the finished painting and the study are in oil.

Near the entrance to the show we were greeted by a 15-minute video that introduced us to the work of  Morrice (b. Montreal, 1865; d. Tunis,1924), and to the achievement of the collector, who donated some fifty of Morrice's paintings to the National Gallery of Canada.

James Wilson Morrice, Palazzo Ferro Fini, Grand Canal, Venice, c. 1900-1905,
oil on wood, 23.7 x 32.7 cm

In the video, the collector Prakash reveals, "My relationship with Morrice and his work is that of a lover and a beloved. It has never been didactic, or scientific or analytical. It has been a magnificent obsession that I have pursued with reckless abandon."

Morrice traveled widely, and his subjects range from Quebec winter scenes to Venetian canals, Parisian gardens, Caribbean seascapes and Tunisian markets. He spent most of the Great War in Paris, and was commissioned by the Canadian War Records Office to record the advancement of Canadian troops as a member of the Canadian Expeditionary Force.

James Wilson Morrice, Afternoon Avignon, c. 1904
oil on wood, 32.5 x 23.5 cm
(I appreciated this scene because I had a picnic lunch in this very spot
a couple of years ago.)

Many of the paintings in the show are small studies, measuring no more than 6 or 8 inches. And many of these, even the smallest, are displayed in very large, heavy and ornate frames, as was the custom in the early 20th century. Both of these aspects of the paintings disappointed me, though I did make an effort to appreciate them as "small gems".

The signage on the gallery walls is entirely in French, but a small, illustrated booklet is available to  guide English-speaking visitors.

The museum is housed in a modern, purpose-built building, and some of its other galleries showcase varied collections of Canadian art, including aboriginal works, with an emphasis on Quebec painters. Below are a few examples:

Stanley Cosgrove, Apple Season, 1927
(I have a soft spot for Stanley Cosgrove, as he spent his final years
in our little town of Hudson, Quebec.)

Emily Carr, Strait of Juan de Fuca, c. 1932-36

Alfred Pellan, Girl in Red, 1941

Goodridge Roberts, Apples on Green Cloth, 1959

Guido Molinari, Pink Triangular Opposition, 1975
(Molinari taught art at Sir George Williams University when
I studied there in the early 70s, as did Yves Gaucher and
Claude Tousignant. Hard-edged painting was "the thing" at the time.)

The Morrice show continues in Joliette until May 5, 2019.