Adrien Hébert has composed the drama of a strom over the Port of Montreal, gleams of sunlight piercing through a break in the dark clouds, the light theatrically illuminating a ship heading toward the harbour. Hébert was modern in his colour sense, and the only Francophone participant in the Beaver Hall Group. Uniquely among artists of his era, Hébert painted a series of paintings at the port in the mid-late 1920s and early 1930s. The Port of Montreal was a focal point for commercial development in post-WWI Canada, the busiest port in Canada during the ice free months, and one of the biggest grain exporting ports in the world. Grain from the vast farmlands of western Canada came in by train and lakers before being put on oceanic ships destined for Europe and Africa. Montreal was also a major hub for immigration from Europe, and advertised easier access to service inland, including the Great Lakes, and onto Chicago. 

Adrien Hébert’s paintings of the Port of Montreal are significant for depicting Canada’s urban and industrial evolution during a period when the Port was a central hub. In the exhibition catalogue for the celebrated Montreal Museum of Fine Arts travelling exhibition, 1920s Modernism in Montreal: The Beaver Hall Group, scholar Esther Trépanier begins her text: “In view of painter Adrien Hébert’s persistent preoccupation with urban modernization, which set him apart from other Quebec artists of the 1920s, his case merits individual attention. Of all the artists who exhibited with the Beaver Hall Group, Adrien Hébert stands out for his interest in picturing the commercial and industrial development of a contemporary city.”[1]

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Footnotes: 

[1] Esther Trépanier, “The Beaver Hall Group: A Montreal Modernity,” in 1920s Modernism in Montreal: The Beaver Hall Group, edited by Jacques Des Rochers and Brian Foss (Montreal / London, U.K.: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts / Black Dog Publishing, 2015), 209.