Abstract

This thesis argues that the celebrated Québécois modernist Paul-Émile Borduas (1905-1960) appropriated West- and Central-African cultural belongings in five of his 1942 gouaches. Through popular literature including the surrealist magazine Minotaure, and exhibitions spaces such as the Musée d'ethnographie du Trocadéro and the Paul Guillaume Gallery in Paris, and the Exposition missionnaire and McGill Museums in Montréal, Borduas encountered the African cultural belongings he would eventually appropriate. The artist likely sought out these points of contact as a way to feed his interest in global Indigenous cultures. Using a post- and anti-colonial approach, this thesis highlights how influential literary and museological colonial channels were on the artist. The extractive nature of these channels places Borduas within a tradition of "extractive Modernism," pervasive in early twentieth-century European Modernism. While he was made aware of African cultural belongings in Paris, Borduas also took an interest in European art and likely adopted extractive Modernism as a way to assert his independence and originality in war time Québec. As well as engaging with global colonialisms, Borduas' appropriations can be placed in dialogue with local colonial legacies in Montréal. This thesis concludes that some of Borduas' 1942 gouaches are doubly transnational: first as they appropriate West- and Central African cultural belongings, and second as they inherit from European extractive Modernism. By placing Borduas at the intersection of these two themes, this thesis places Québec art history within global dynamics of colonialism.