Françoise Sullivan

At 95 years of age, Françoise Sullivan still works in her studio most every day. From her participation in the 1948 publication Refus Global – a radical statement by Quebec avant garde artists of the time – she has broken through boundaries as both an artist and a woman and her creations throughout the decades include paintings, sculptures, photographs, performance and dance. This retrospective monograph highlights the key role she has played in the history of modern and contemporary art in Canada. In addition to presenting the artist’s diverse and multidisciplinary practice, the authors offer an in-depth exploration of some of the milestones in her career. The various styles and approaches adopted by Sullivan over the years are contextualized with the help of a large number of archival documents, both personal and professional. As a whole, the publication provides a fascinating portrait of a singular artist’s trajectory through several decades of the changing nature of art. In English and French.

Mark Lanctôt is curator at the MACM and author of monographs on artists such as Claude Tousignant and Jon Rafman. Vincent Bonin’s essays have been published by Canadian Art, Fillip magazines and Sternberg Press. Chantal Charbonneau is head of publications at the MACM. Ray Ellenwood is Professor Emeritus of English at York University in Toronto, the author of Egregore: A History of the Montreal Automatist Movement and of the English translation of Refus Global. Noémie Solomon is Program Director at the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance, Wesleyan University, Connecticut.