Les paradis du monde: Quebec Folk Art

This travelling exhibition, organized by the Canadian Museum of Civilization, presents 93 works from three different but equally important collections of Quebec folk art.

Drawn from three distinct periods, each collection reflects the aesthetic vision and ideology of its creators as well as revealing the tastes of the collectors. The first section, The Collection of Contemporary Folk Art (also called patenteux), sheds light on the recent works (1970 to the present) of which it is composed. We learn that the term patenteux, long used in a derogatory sense to describe a handyman, has become more respectable and is often used to pay tribute to folk art. The second part, The English Amateurs' Collection, examines works collected by English Canadians during the 1950s and 1960s, objects whose "naive" quality is believed to have satisfied the collector's nostalgic longing for the exotic. Finally, The Marius Barbeau Collection explores selected works from the "classical" collection mounted by the renowned anthropologist and ethnologist.