Intérieur, 1939

Private Collection, Montreal

Charles C. Hill, “Canadian Painting in the Thirties,” The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1975, page 115 Guy Robert, “Marc-Aurèle Fortin: L’homme à L’oeuvre,” Ottawa, 1976, reproduced page 48 Guy Robert, “Fortin: L’homme à L’oeuvre,” Montreal, 1982, reproduced page 18

Born in Sainte-Rose, Marc-Aurèle Fortin’s early artistic training came at home under the tutelage of artists including Ludger Larose and Edmond Dyonnet before his studies would take him to Chicago, New York, Boston and later, to France. Although best known for his studies of the life of small-town Quebec (“...the large elms in small Quebec villages, hay wagons on country roads, and the flowing curves of Quebec farmhouses...”), this painting presents a rare view inside one of the painter’s distinct homesteads. Fortin’s varied palette is present here, lined by his signature use of black tones along the edges and crevasses of the kitchen. As with the painter’s most celebrated work, any presence of darkness is overpowered by colour. As reds and oranges burst from the fire within the stove, yellow light streaks through the only window in the room, spotlighting a quiet moment between mother and child. The warmth transmitted from the scene is carried not only by the comfort of the sun and crackling fire, but also from the tender moment shared between the two.