Claude Tousignant, is 92, no longer paints but was keen to curate this exhibition, selecting work from his seven decades career, the show is titled “EARLY | MIDDLE | LATE”.

The exhbition is anchored by two mid-career masterpieces DUO, 1969 and LE ROUGE ET LE VERT, 1975. Both works are rare and large double 60" diptychs. DUO was included in Tousignant's 1973 National Gallery of Canada retrospective. LE ROUGE ET LE VERT is from Tousignant's series of three-colour diptychs produced between 1972 and 1977. Also included are a group of ink and watercolour works on paper from 1956/57. These works represent Tousignant's interest in Tachism and his entry into the mainstream of Montreal painting in the mid 1950's.  The third part of this exhibition features three diptychs from 2019 which are among the last works painted by Tousignant.

Claude Tousignant is a titan of abstraction in Canadian art. Beginning in the 1950’s he was at the forefront of a handful of artists who sought to redefine abstract art. His works leave an indelible mark on the history of painting in Canada, notably, his iconic circular canvases, characterized by lyrical pure colour in alternating bands of equal width. From the outset, Tousignant sought to achieve autonomy within a painted object, free from representation, free of the tedious debates of figure/ground, horizontal/vertical, and free from the landscape traditions of Canadian painting. For the artist, true abstract art must contain no spatial illusions, and nothing eliminates spatial depth better than a circle. This format became unique to Tousignant: two identical circles, each with concentric bands of colour and the two representing a single work. Tousignant’s circle/target paintings were entirely new pictures, each with a simplified rhythmic system. Tousignant wrote; ‘’ I was fascinated by the circle as a form, the circle has equal tension all around, equal tensions to all peripheries”.

Tousignant’s achievements were heralded in exhibitions and awards, first in The Responsive Eye (MoMA, NYC 1965). Important shows in 1968 included Seven Montreal Painters (MIT, Cambridge, Ma), CANADA 101 (Edinburgh International Festival), Canada, Art d’ujourd’hui  (Paris, Rome, Lausanne and Brussels), Canadian Artists 68 at The Art Gallery of Ontario and the Seventh Biennial of Canadian Painting at The National Gallery of Canada. Tousignant’s achievements in the Canadian canon of painting were celebrated before his 40th birthday in 1973 with a National of Canada Gallery retrospective, presented in twelve venues across the country and also in Paris.