Private viewing at St. Bruno

The scene of this painting depicts the vernissage of Milos’s former student at Laval University, Louise Jalbert, who had studied together with Michèle Lemieux between 1972 and 1976, at the very beginning of Milos’ pedagogical career. Louise meanwhile had completed a Master degree in Fine arts in Paris and here we see her work exposed, watercolours of stylised trees, trunks and leaves representing the natural environment in which she lived back in Canada. Milos accompanied us to the vernissage and, after having admired the work of his former student, there he was, sitting near a window with a glass of wine in hand, watching the visitors of the exhibition and their reactions to the artwork they had in front of them. About one week later, this painting was born, showing the main exhibition space of the old building, formerly the presbytery of St-Bruno just south of Montreal, now the city’s art center. In the lower right hand corner of the painting we can even detect the «labyrinthic» roads we had to take in order to find our way to this country presbytery, the upper right hand corner offers a glimpse through a window onto a little pond full of skaters which indicate to us that the vernissage took place in mid Winter.

Six years later, after Milos’ death, we organized a little retrospective exhibition of his own work exactly in the same venue. (For some preliminary sketches of this specific painting, see his sketchbook no. 4)

– WN