Françoise SullivanLife & Work

“As a leading woman member of the Automatistes, Françoise Sullivan brought a new visual sensibility to art in Quebec, and her writings and lectures were pivotal at a time when criticism focused primarily on the painting practices of male artists. Although she constantly experimented and often changed her approach to art making, she remained committed to self-expression and improvisation as a way to unleash primal energy.”

– Annie Gérin

Françoise Sullivan: Life & Work recounts the artist’s evolution as a practitioner and explores defining events and periods that shaped her practice; her encounter with Paul-Émile Borduas and the Automatistes; her dance studies in New York under the guidance of Franziska Boas; her marriage to painter Paterson Ewen; her training as a sculptor under Armand Vaillancourt; and the parallel career she led as an educator at Concordia University in Montreal. The book describes this remarkably accomplished artist’s career, considering her groundbreaking exhibitions and performances, her incisive theoretical texts on art, her photographic documentation of ephemeral works, and her choreographer’s drawings and notations. It reveals the richness and the breadth of Sullivan’s work and her role as a major contributor to the most relevant artistic debates of the twentieth century.

Copyright Information

Banner Image: Françoise Sullivan, Proportio-7, 2015. Collection of the artist. Courtesy of Galerie Simon Blais, Montreal. © Françoise Sullivan/SODRAC (2018). Photo credit: Guy L’Heureux.