The contemporaneity—or relevance—of Edmund Alleyn’s practice is not confined to its anchoring in the present,” noted Mark Lanctôt, Curator at the MAC and curator of the retrospective Dans mon atelier, je suis plusieurs.
Beyond his ability to capture the spirit of his time, he in fact inhabited multiple temporalities. And it is this multiplicity that the anniversary programming pays tribute to today.
“I am Mr. Always,” Edmund Alleyn would say, with a smile…
FALL 2025
Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the Passing of Edmund Alleyn
This fall 2025 marks the 20th anniversary of the death of artist Edmund Alleyn.
To mark the occasion, a special multidisciplinary program is unfolding across Montreal—a circuit whose stops will lead you through various institutions: the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Galerie Bellemare Lambert, and La Caisse.
Through exhibitions, film screenings, and new installations, rediscover the avant-garde work of an unclassifiable, pioneering artist whose influence on contemporary Quebec art continues to resonate.
Main event :
EXHIBITIONS
« By Day by Night” – Galeries Bellemare Lambert
Dive into the intimate wold of the artist throughpreviously unseen sketch books of Edmund Alleyn. The shifting motifs echo the book of the same name, By day By night, published by Éditions du Passage.
Opening on Saturday, December 6 at 2 p.m. Running from December 6 to January 24.
372 Sainte-Catherine St. W, Suite 502, Montreal QC H3B 1A2
“From the Functional to the Fabulous : 600 Years of Decorative Arts and Design ” – Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
New installation of the iconic work L’invitation au voyage.
Starting September 13, 2025
1380 Sherbrooke St. W, Montreal, QC H3G 1J5
Info: www.mbam.qc.ca
Le Parquet de La Caisse
Four significant works by Edmund Alleyn will be accessible to the public on the Parquet de La Caisse, underscoring the importance of his work within this prestigious institutional collection.
Starting December 6, 2025
Édifice Jacques-Parizeau, 1000 Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle, Montreal, QC H2Z 2B5
CINEMA
“My Father’s Studio” by Jennifer Alleyn – Cinéma du Musée
Special screening in collaboration with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
Directed by Jennifer Alleyn, the film—winner of the Best Canadian Work award at FIFA 2008—retraces the career and works of her father, artist Edmund Alleyn, a major figure in Canadian contemporary art.
The screening will be followed by a conversation between Anne-Marie Saint-Jean Aubre, Anne-Marie Saint-Jean Aubre, Curator of Quebec and Canadian Contemporary Art (1945 to today) at the MMFA and holder of the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Chair.
To open the evening, storyteller Paul Bradley will offer a short performance inspired by the artist’s work.
Synopsis:
A captivating reflection on the role of art in our lives.
Having inherited her father’s studio after his death, filmmaker Jennifer Alleyn finds herself in a space still infused with the artist’s imagination. Like an anthropologist, she observes the place and the works, seeking—beyond death—to prolong the dialogue and understand the fascinating trajectory of this free-thinker who left a lasting mark on Canadian contemporary art.
Featuring: Edmund Alleyn, Olivier Asselin, Leslie Reid.
December 8 at 7 p.m.
1379-A Sherbrooke St. W, Montreal, QC H3G 1K3
Info & tickets: www.cinemacinema.ca
INAUGURATION
Urban Installation
Postponed to spring 2026 due to early snowfall!
A commemorative banner will be installed on the building of the artist’s former studio, which he occupied for more than 50 years.
Visible from Saint-Laurent Boulevard, at the heart of Montreal’s cultural life, this visual tribute—offered to the very neighbourhood where he created—anchors his memory in the city’s urban landscape for generations to come.
Accessible from 3855 Saint-Laurent Blvd., Montreal, QC H2W 1X9
WINTER 2023
EXIBITIONS
:. Nature, Objects, Interiors – Galerie Simon Blais – March 1 to Avril 15, 2023
The exhibition Nature, Objects, Interiors brings together works related in some way to the theme of still life. It echoes the work of Isabelle Guimond. This exhibition will allow visitors to see previously unpublished works by Jean-Paul Jérôme and Denis Juneau, works from our inventory by Edmund Alleyn, Betty Goodwin, Éliane Excoffier and Alexis Lavoie, as well as a very old work by Jean Paul Riopelle, a still life from 1942, created when he was only 18 years old, which was last exhibited at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts 30 years ago.
https://galeriesimonblais.com/en/expos/nature_objects_interiors
:. Edmund Alleyn: Schémas techno, 1966-67 Galerie Bellemare Lambert
14 January to 18 February, 2023
The human condition in the age of invasive technologies.
http://www.bellemarelambert.com/en/exposition/edmund-alleyn-schemas-techno1966-67-en
FALL 2020
Written in the spring of 2020 by Nancy HUSTON and richly illustrated by Edmund ALLEYN’s work, this collection of eighteen texts constitutes a set of fine observations and powerful analysis, often delivered in the intimate tone of the personal diary during and about the quarantine caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
At first paralyzed by this situation as dramatic as it was unexpected, and indefinitely kept out of Paris, Nancy Huston saw her mind somehow falter, and her writing also confined. But quickly the breath of life resumes, and that of writing goes back up loud and clear, denouncing the political attitudes that put in place this odious confinement of bodies and intelligence
SPRING 2019
Discover some of Canadian artist Edmund Alleyn’s work in several exhibitions around the world in 2019.
EXHIBITIONS
:. Répliques – Centre d’exposition de l’Université de Montréal – May 2 to September 14, 2019
“RÉPLIQUES is the fourth part of the STATUER exhibition cycle. The figures of the base started in 2017. This new incarnation presents 14 Quebec artists in current art, who play with the shape and function of the base. As a counterpoint, a series of pictorial works from the University Collection offer a quirky 20th century crossing.
With the works of Magali Baribeau-Marchand & Sara Létourneau, John Boyle-Singfield, Marie-France Brière, Eric Cardinal, Cooke-Sasseville, Eric Ladouceur, Mathieu Latulippe, Paryse Martin, Nadia Myre, Pierre&Marie, Olivier Roberge and Works of Art of the University of Montreal, Edmund Alleyn, Marcel Barbeau, Ernest Cormier, Yves Gaucher, Pierre Granche, Alain Laframboise, Henry Léopold Masson, Louise Masson, Louis Comtois et Alfred Pellan.”
WINTER 2019
EXHIBITIONS
:. Françoise Sullivan. Hommages – Fondation Guido Molinari – February 28 to April 21, 2019
“From February 28 to April 21, the Guido Molinari Foundation will present Françoise Sullivan. Hommages, a selection of paintings made at the turn of the millennium, in tribute to Sullivan’s painter friends deceased at that time. To this corpus of historical works (dedicated to Edmund Alleyn, Ulysse Comtois, Marcelle Ferron and Guido Molinari) will be added two recent works, made specifically for our exhibition, in tribute to John Heward and Fernand Leduc. In addition, each of Sullivan’s Hommages will be accompanied by a major work of the artist to whom it is dedicated.”
:. Discoteca Analitica – FRI ART, Switzerland- February 9th to March 31st, 2019
” Discoteca Analitica reassesses the emergence of multimedia experiments in the Sixties based on the range of early varieties of discotheque. The exhibition offers an immersive experience bringing together Californian counter-culture, pop and psychedelic movements, and pioneers of radical Italian architecture. It is based on unpublished archives and original works. They reveal how music, ecstasy and collective experience, at the heart of these artists’ concerns, have preempted our contemporary digital culture.
With works, archival documents and writings by :
Edmund Alleyn, Archizoom Associati, Udo Breger, John Brockman and others.“
FALL 2018
2018 reveals new aspects of Canadian artist Edmund Alleyn’s life and work, through his first biography, written by author Gilles Lapointe. Also, discover some of his work in several exhibitions in Montreal, Quebec City and Ottawa.
LIVE AUCTION
:. BYDealers Live Auction – Palais des Congrès de Montréal- November 5, 2018 – 7 pm
The work Au sujet de petite soeur (1963) by Edmund Alleyn, a jewel of the Indian Series (1962-64) will be one of the jewels at the auction of BYDealers on November 5, 2018 in Montreal.
Edmund Alleyn, Au sujet de petite soeur, 1963
EXHIBITIONS
:. Summer Exhibition – Galerie Simon Blais – July 14 to September 1, 2018
” Galerie Simon Blais marks the beginning of summer with an exhibition inspired by day-to-day life during the season. Edmund Alleyn, Michel Campeau, Bertrand Carrière, Serge Clément, Alexis Lavoie, Jessica Peters and Mark Stebbins are among the artists whose works will be on view. ”
:. 150 Years | 150 Works: Canadian Art as Historical Act – La Galerie UQAM- Online starting May 2, 2018
” The virtual exhibition 150 Years | 150 Works: Canadian Art as Historical Act presents art as an integral part of Canada’s social and political history. It looks at Canada through works that have in some way shaped or changed the country’s history over the past century and a half.”
Edmund Alleyn’s sculpture Introscaphe I, 1968-1970, will be displayed as part of the exhibition.
Edmund Alleyn, Introscaphe I, 1968-1970, Wood, fibreglass, paint, electrical and electronic circuits, projection system and other materials, 155 x 365 x 105 cm
:. L’idée du territoire, une exploration des collections – Centre d’exposition de l’Université de Montréal – May 17th to August 10th, 2018
” The twentieth anniversary of Centre d’exposition de l’Université de Montréal will have given Commissioner Geneviève Chevalier an opportunity to explore some of the university’s numerous and rich collections, in the light of certain issues and notions communicated by the works themselves. Through painting, printmaking and drawing, these works often evoke very real sites, as well as mental spaces. “
Edmund Alleyn’s Totem 2, 1964, will be displayed as part of the exhibition.
:. We’ll all become stories – Ottawa Art Gallery – April 28th to September 16th, 2018
“Twenty-nine years since our founding, and with the impending opening of our new expanded home, the OAG will mark and celebrate this important juncture by drawing together a seminal collection of art to generate the most extensive and multilayered exploration of the region’s art history and contemporary production to date. ” — Alexandra Badzak, Director and CEO
:. Mnemosyme – Montreal Museum of Fine Arts – Until May 20th 2018.
The presentation provides a way to uncover unexpected encounters between the works on display in the new Michal and Renata Honrstein Pavillion for Peace and the installations, sculptures and pictures by 14 contemporary artists from Quebec and Canada.
Edmund Alleyn, L’invitation au voyage, 1989, Oil on canvas, 241 X 475, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Collection
:. Permanent Collection – Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Also at Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, among more recent acquisitions, the piece La tribu se satellise (1964), inspired by native-american culture, vitalizes the « Passerelle des plasticiens » under Sherbrooke street.
Edmund Alleyn, La tribu se satellise, 1964, oil on canvas, central piece and 10 small paintings, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Collection.
:. From Ferron to BGL – MNBAQ – On going
Contemporary art from Quebec
This exhibition presents more than 60 key works from 1960 to today by essential figures in the history of Québec art.
Edmund Alleyn, Lac Brome de La Suite québécoise, 1974, oil on plexiglas, MNBAQ Collection
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
IN BOOKSTORES
Edmund Alleyn’s biography
By author Gilles Lapointe, Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal.
The author’s masterpiece received great reviews!
Read the article «La consécration d’Edmund Alleyn, chapitre 3» – Le Devoir (in French).
ON NEWSSTANDS
- Vie des arts, Edmund Alleyn Ou vivre pour l’art, Louise Julien (in French)
- Lettres québécoises, Alleyn, coureur de formes, Emmanuel Simard (in French)
VIDEO
ALLEYN IN THE DICTIONARY
The Historical dictionary of Quebec sculpture in the 20th century, online since 2014 and managed by Espace magazine, recently published a page on Edmund Alleyn’s Introscaphe I sculpture.
MY FATHER’S STUDIO
IN SEARCH OF EDMUND ALLEYN…
A Jennifer Alleyn movie
produced by Amazone Film
This free-thinking artist who passed away in 2004 is returning to express his own vision of life and the world.
Best canadian work -FIFA 2008
NOW IN DVD![…]
Téléchargez le film depuis la France : ici