Sous-sol au mannequin de tailleur : un tableau témoin d’un quartier et d’une époque de Louis Muhlstock

Montreal painter Louis Muhlstock (1904-2001) explored deserted apartments in the city's Jewish ghetto – places declared unfit for human habitation – and made them subjects of his paintings. "Basement with Tailor's Dummy" (ca. 1940) is part of a series of these paintings of empty rooms and buildings captured by Muhlstock mainly during his visits in the Centre-Sud borough of Montreal. The author argues that an analysis of this particular painting allows for a parallel survey of the social, cultural, and historical climate of Montreal during the Depression. During his walks through the  Jewish ghetto, Muhlstock discovered an abandoned house on the corner of  St-Norbert and St-Dominique streets. At the time, it faced the Bon Pasteur  complex, and was described in Goad's Atlas of Montreal as "Convent &  Female Refuge." The author remarks that Muhlstock painted several versions of the interior of this  house, the most important being "Basement with Tailor's Dummy."

Journal of Canadian Art History/Annales d'histoire de l'art

Vol. 33

no. 1

119-141

2012

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