Tribute evening to Marcelle Ferron | The amazing journey of a free woman

The Outremont Theater was packed Monday evening for the evening tribute to the painter and master glassmaker Marcelle Ferron, whose 100th anniversary is being celebrated this year.^e birthday (1924-2001).

To kick off this anniversary year, the late automatist painter and signatory of Overall refusal in 1948 was notably represented by his daughters Diane and Babalou Hamelin, both very discreet.

“It’s moving, I don’t know if I’ll last the whole evening,” Babalou told us shortly before the start of the ceremony. My mother was a wonderful woman, I loved my mother, she was very present,” said Babalou, who made a career as a film editor.

Her sister Diane also had good words about her mother. “We are really proud of her. Paintings, sculptures, she gave us several during her life, she was very generous. Generous with her time and her person. We were very close to her. »

Their sister Danielle Hamelin Lemeunier, who lives in France, will come to Quebec in the spring.

Other distinguished guests include the presence of Armand Vaillancourt, who will soon celebrate his 95th birthday.

Françoise Sullivan, whose centenary was recently celebrated, was also present. “Marcelle was a warm woman. I felt like she was my best friend, she told us. She arrived later in the group, but she integrated right away. She was brilliant and very committed. »

Committed. Feminist. Free. Long live. Mischievous. These are some of the words that came up often during this evening organized by Les amis de la Place Marcelle-Ferron, hosted by actors Mireille Deyglun and Sébastien Ricard.

Subversive art

The tribute to Marcelle Ferron consisted essentially of the broadcast of numerous extracts from television interviews that she gave over the years – most of them from the Radio-Canada archives –, a way of making her very present.

From the first extracts, we discover a simple woman of extreme vivacity, rebellious and, above all, happy.

We learn, among other things, that she began painting to do what her mother, who died prematurely of tuberculosis, did not fully realize. She was only 7 years old when she disappeared…

Of Paul-Émile Borduas, she confided that he was her true “master of thought”. The one who revealed to her the beauty of abstract art, to which she devoted herself. Of Overall refusal which she signed at the age of 24, that the text “fitted her like a glove”. And again, that this text committed her “for life”.

From Quebec in the early 1950s, Marcelle Ferron said: “I had the impression of being in prison. » Rebellious and free, she went into exile in France in 1953, alone with her three young children. “It was a question of life and death,” she says of the Duplessis regime and Quebec’s artistic desert era.

On her return to Quebec in 1966, Marcelle Ferron exhibited her paintings everywhere and multiplied her works on glass screens, attracted by light and transparency. She is increasingly interested in public art projects and the social role of the artist, seeking to address a wider audience.

His glass roof project in the Champ-de-Mars metro station, inaugurated in 1968, remains one of his flagship public works.

“What I appreciate most about this woman is her freedom,” co-host Sébastien Ricard tells us. His courage and audacity. She denounced the control of the clergy and she arrived with her public art and her glass roofs. It’s still subversive. »

The final word goes to him here. In an interview filmed at the end of the 1980s, Marcelle Ferron told us: “What is consecration? Personally, I attach little importance to that. I never lived to have a career, I lived to live, that’s something else. And I painted for a living. »