Still Life with Tomatoes, 1948

Galerie Walter Klinkhoff, Montreal Private Collection, Ontario

In 1938, Paul-Vanier Beaulieu left Montreal for Paris, where he would paint for the next thirty-five years in a studio in Montparnasse with his brother, Claude. At the time Montparnasse was alive with the modernist movement led by Pablo Picasso, who Beaulieu met, frequently visiting his studio. World War II would interrupt his time there as Beaulieu and his brother would be arrested and imprisoned until 1944 when Paris was liberated. “Still Life with Tomatoes”, painted in 1948, continues to explore his interest in form and design, taking cues from the European modernists. Even though the bright colours of the plant are applied with a palette knife, the artist has integrated the background and foreground of the composition by employing elements of Cubist theory. He has fractured the blue background into almost geometric shapes that immediately surround the plant, creating an all-over pattern-like effect and emphasizing the flat two-dimensional surface of the picture plane.