signed lower left; titled and dated circa 1930 on labels on the reverse
16 × 20 in (40.6 × 50.8 cm) (sight)
Galerie Clarence Gagnon, Montreal
Galerie Walter Klinkhoff, Montreal
Private Collection, Montreal
Marc-Aurèle Fortin: The Experience of Colour; Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Montreal, travelling to McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, Ontario, 10 February-11 September 2011, no. 39
Marc-Aurèle Fortin (1888-1970) Retrospective Exhibition, Galerie Walter Klinkhoff, Montreal, September 2006, no. 24
Michèle Grandbois, Marc-Aurèle Fortin: The Experience of Colour, Montreal, 2011, no. 39, reproduced page 113
Marc-Aurèle Fortin first experimented with watercolour in 1918. He was drawn to the medium but also found it very challenging. After painting several studies of trees in 1920 using a sponge application technique, he was dissatisfied with his progress and temporarily abandoned watercolour painting. In the mid-to-late 1920s, Fortin reintroduced watercolour into his repertoire with newfound confidence, using bright pigments painted directly on dry paper, which created sharp contours and crisp compositions. Vue sur la gare Viger displays the artist’s proficiency in this new technique. His pigments are soft and delicate, yet his lines are clean and distinct; the watercolour painting demonstrates Fortin’s mastery of the range of techniques presented by the medium. Fortin chose the downtown train station as his subject to highlight the growing urbanization of Montreal.
Recognized by critics for the magnificence of the trees in his works of the early 1920s, Fortin began to develop a greater interest in urban activity by walking the streets of Montreal later in the decade. Vue sur la gare Viger was completed in 1930, when Fortin was receiving wider recognition. The National Gallery of Canada exhibited and acquired one of his watercolours in the same year.
