Portraits and Fashion

From May 31 to September 29, 2024, the McCord Stewart Museum presents Portraits and Fashion – Quebec Photographers Beyond Borders, brings together prints by 17 photographers who are shining a spotlight on Quebec talent on the international stage:  Max Abadian, William Arcand, Richard Bernardin, Alex Black, Sacha Cohen, Cristina Gareau, Andréanne Gauthier, Royal Gilbert, Shayne Laverdière, Carl Lessard, Monic Richard, Norman Jean Roy, Étienne Saint-Denis, Nelson Simoneau, Oumayma Ben Tanfous, Xavier Tera and villedepluie.

17 Quebec photographers

This original exhibition, with its exuberant scenography, features the artistic, editorial and commercial photography that these photographers practice with equal ease and talent, as well as their more personal work. Accustomed to collaborating with major fashion magazines, the advertising world and the music scene, they capture images that are sometimes stripped of all artifice, sometimes sophisticatedly cinematic, but always imbued with great sensitivity towards their models – whether famous or unknown.

In addition to stunning fashion photographs, a gallery of over a hundred unprecedented iconic portraits unfolds before our eyes, from Céline Dion, U2 and Charlotte Cardin to Nelson Mandela, Zidane, Elisapie, Adele, Barbie Ferreira, Mika and Les Louanges. On top of this, some twenty audiovisual clips produced for the occasion by creative agency Rodéo FX provide a glimpse into their artistic approach.

Curator: Thierry-Maxime Loriot

Curated by Thierry-Maxime Loriot, the man behind several memorable exhibitions in Montreal and abroad, including Thierry Mugler: Couturissime and The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk, the exhibition is designed and organized by the McCord Stewart Museum and presented by Holt Renfrew Ogilvy.

“There are many words you could use to describe the work of these 17 artists, portraitists and fashion photographers. But they all have one thing in common: Quebec. Whether they’re from Tunisia or Iran, the Laurentians or Montérégie, whether they’re being discovered or rediscovered, they’ve developed their singular creativity and aesthetic vision in Quebec, before exporting their work and establishing themselves as essential players on today’s international scene. For some, Quebec’s photography schools and then its fashion and publishing microcosm have been a springboard to major capitals like New York, London, Paris, Los Angeles and Tokyo, and from there their images have made their way into the most prestigious magazines.”
– Thierry-Maxime Loriot

Fashion photography at the Museum

This project follows on from several previous fashion photography exhibitions at the McCord Stewart Museum, including Horst: Photographer of Style (2015) and Norman Parkinson: Always in Style  (2024), reflecting its mission to examine the different forms of artistic expression that can be found in Montreal and beyond, both in the past and today. It also resonates with the remarkable Photography and Dress, Fashion and Textiles collections, which position the Museum as a North American benchmark in these fields of collecting and museology.