Rediscovering the lost genius of Edmund Alleyn

JenniferAlleynwalks into the first room of a retrospective of her father's career, which opened this week at the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art.

She is surrounded by the abstract paintings that define Edmund Alleyn's early work; big swaths of black parceling out the canvas, as inLa Crevasseof 1960.

"People will be so surprised about what comes next," she says, smiling.

What comes next are thetechno-figurativepieces of the late1960s; a virtual reality prototype from 1970; a series of works from the1970sthat combine melancholy, kitsch and Plexiglas.

Then comes the tremendous stillness of theIndigoseries, which give way to the surreal explorations of objects that occupy his canvases in the years before his death.

By the time visitors reach the final paintings of the 60-work exhibit, they've received not only an overview of the development of an artist, but of history itself.

Edmund Alleyn's daughter discusses her favourite paintings, part 1

8 years ago

Duration 0:50

Edmund Alleyn's daughter discusses her favourite paintings, part 1

A career reconsidered

One of the goals of theretrospectiveis to returnEdmundAlleyn'swork to the spotlight.Alleyn, whodied in 2004, was a critical darlingat different points in his career.

But he hasyet to take a place in the pantheon of contemporary Quebec art, alongside such established luminaries as Jean-Paul Riopelle, Guido Molinari and Yves Gaucher.

• What makes Jean-Paul Riopelle great?
• Who were Les Plasticiens?

"His position is kind of ambivalent in the history of art," said MarkLanctt, the exhibit's curator.

WhenRiopelleand the Automisteswere all the rage in the1950s,Alleynwas poking fun atthem. When non-figurative minimalism was popular in the1970s,Alleynturned to figuration.And when the End of Painting was being declared in the early1980s,Alleynwas churning out ambitious canvases.

This insistence on reinvention and iconoclasm made it difficult for the art world to classifyAlleyn'swork, as itruns against the conventional expectation that artists develop an distinct style and stick with it.

"Beingstylistically heterogeneous isconsidered career suicide," saidLanctt. "But the biggest archetypes of20thcentury art are heterogeneous ... like Picasso."

The Paris years

EdmundAlleynwas born in Quebec City in 1931. He wasraised inan anglophone household but lived most of his professional and personal life in French.

Like many other avant-garde Quebec artists of his generation, who felt the province's conservative social climate didn't foster creativity,Alleynleft for Paris in his 20s.

His work there came to be infused with concerns about thedehumanizingeffects of modern capitalism. It culminates with theIntroscaphe, an egg-shaped chamber where visitors would be subject to an experimental anti-capitalist film.

The work was a hit when it was shown in Paris in 1970. At that juncture,Lancttsays,Alleyncould have branched off into filmmaking.

ButAlleyn, hearing that Quebec had changed in the wake of the Quiet Revolution,returned the following year.

"It was a very different place and that created a moment of crisis of sorts,"Lancttsaid. "It was like he wasoverwhelmed by how much people hadchanged and how crazyit hadbecome."

Edmund Alleyn's daughter discusses her favourite paintings, part 2

8 years ago

Duration 1:03

Edmund Alleyn's daughter discusses her favourite paintings, part 2

Coming home

His response is to return to painting. He delivers the Suitequbcoise: photographs of anonymousQuebecersrendered in paint on Plexiglasscreens with deliberatelycheesysunsets as backdrop.

A related series,Iceberg Blues,is currently on display atthe Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

With time, though, Alleyn's work ceases to explicitly engage the world around him. In an interview, he describes his workat the time as "a return to the individual, the private individual."

An empty tennis court, discardeddeck chairs at a cottage, an unmooredspeedboat;it's such moodyimages thatAlleynusesto evoke inner states of being in his later years.

"It's this kind of relationshipbetween what's around youand who you arethat is throughouthis wholework," saidLanctt.

But fundamentally, it isAlleyn'schosen medium painting that is perhapstheonly trueconstant in his career.

"He cameback to painting in the end it was his country," his daughter said.

Having that constant was important for someone who was constantly transitioning, transgressing and questioning hismembership tothe social groups around him.

It anchored his identity in a society in flux.

"Because he had a language battle being [an]anglophonewho was then wasbrought up in French school,I think images really became his language and his country."

• Cit Mmoire: History comes alive in Old Montreal

In My Studio, IAmMany runs until Sept.25 at the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art.