Le Gobelet, Tavern Restaurant , 1975

Marlborough-Godard Gallery, Toronto Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto Galerie Lafitte, Montreal Loch & Mayberry Fine Art, Winnipeg Private Collection, Ontario

Possibly “William Kurelek: Montreal Revisited Series”, Marlborough‒ Godard Gallery, Montreal, December 1975‒January 1976

Avrom Isaacs fonds, York University, Toronto, 1996-036/020 (1), typed Isaacs Gallery price list and notes for “Montreal Revisited” exhibition, November 1975 Joan Murray, “Kurelek’s Vision of Canada”, Oshawa, 1982, page 76

In late 1975, a selection of twenty-five mixed media paintings by William Kurelek were exhibited at Marlborough‒Godard Gallery as part of his Montreal Revisited series. This group of artworks presented a variety of depictions of Montreal, including classic Old Montreal and McGill University scenes, as well as less-familiar locations to those not native to the city, such as Laval, Town of Mount Royal, and Pointe- aux-Trembles. In this work, Kurelek has depicted Le Gobelet, a tavern that was located on St. Laurent Boulevard in Montreal. The artist has perfectly captured the warmth, eccentricity and comfort of this charming restaurant. The choice to paint this vivid composition on a uniquely shaped board measuring 28 x 9 inches adds to the intimacy of this snapshot of Montreal life. Kurelek writes in his statement on the series: “I have lived a total of about a year in Montreal starting back in 1952. I feel I know it enough to make at least comments on it under some such title as Montreal Revisited. I like Montreal and, after Toronto, it would be my second choise [sic] of place to live. It’s the atmosphere of it. There’s more character packed into one block of Montreal than in 10 blocks of Toronto, if my fellow Torontonians will pardon me saying it. It’s ostensibly a study on the character and beauty of a Canadian city...” Kurelek’s friend May Cutler, a Montreal native, was instrumental in exposing the artist to the many facets of the city which he depicted in this series of artworks. Cutler offered to take Kurelek on an “unorthodox” tour of the city, sharing the city in which she was born and bred with the artist. Regarding his method of documenting scenes of Montreal for the series, Kurelek writes: “I took several hundred photographs, consulted several books about the city and projected slides on my studio wall while painting. I did some sketching too of underlying compositions right on location and later completed the paintings at my little farm above Bancroft, Ontario.” Remarking on this painting, Kurelek wrote: “French cooking to my appreciation anyhow, shares first place in the world with Chinese. So I had to include a restaurant scene in this series. The best of the “old atmosphere” restaurants in Montreal are to be found in the warehouse and back office area of the Old City, for example “The Catalogne” or the “Filles de Roi”. But Geoff and Joan Graham whose house is also in this series introduced us to such an atmosphere dining and wining place that is reasonably priced, The Gobelet. All it lacks really for my level of appreciation is that the atmosphere of the surrounding area does not conform. The reason is that Le Gobelet is a huge French Canadian born lifted lock stock and barrel from the site of the new Mirabel airport when forms there were being levelled. It was replanted in a spot at the top of St. Laurent street near Jarry Park where the Expos play baseball. Le Gobelet is basically a large tavern where all kinds of colourful, usually young French people can get together and converse over huge mugs of beer. And there is plenty to talk about if you are interested in heritage, for the walls are crowded with stuffed birds and old utensils and tools. I chose the Gobelet over other restaurants simply because I was by my lonesome on that particular research trip and didn’t have someone to share a more expensive meal with. Also the long vertical panel I settled on accommodated the Gobelet’s high ceiling better than the sub-basement settings of most of the Old City gourmet restaurants.”