Fernand Toupin naît en 1930 à Montréal. Sa formation artistique débute avec des cours de dessin, qu’il suit au Collège Mont-Saint-Louis. Il entre par la suite à l’École des beaux-arts de Montréal en 1949, où il étudie aux côtés de Jean-Paul Jérôme. De 1949 à 1953, il travaille dans l’atelier de Stanley Cosgrove. La carrière artistique de Toupin prend de l’ampleur dès 1954 et il lance en 1955 à Montréal, le Manifeste des plasticiens, avec Louis Belzile, Jean Paul Jérôme et Rodolphe de Repentigny, en opposition à Refus Global. Comparé aux automatistes qui prônent un art spontané et expressif, les plasticiens, dont Fernand Toupin valorisent l’art inspiré par les pionniers de l’abstrait tels que Piet Mondrian. Ils revendiquent un espace pictural sans suggestion de profondeur, et une dichotomie entre l’objet et le support. L’artiste contribue à l’évolution de ce mouvement pictural à travers la forme irrégulière de ses tableaux et son exploration de la texture.

Born in 1888 in Sainte-Rose, Marc-Aurèle Fortin is a painter whose work is almost entirely devoted to landscapes, mainly rural. He apprenticed with Ludger Larose and Edmond Dyonnet, then studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. He returned to Quebec in 1914, but it was not until 1920, following a trip to Europe, that he began to paint in earnest scenes of Montreal Island, mainly rural at the time, and of Sainte-Rose. From 1923 to 1926, he explored painting numerous tree scenes. By 1935, he was experimenting with the application of colors on a black surface, then on a gray one, giving him a bright, luminous rendering. He also tried his hand at printmaking, engraving some 60 plates. Towards the end of the '30s, he travels to Gaspésie and meets Alexandre Bercovitch. It was here that he explored watercolor painting underlined by black pencil or pastel. In the 50s, he began painting with casein. Fortin then spent his entire career experimenting, exploring new mediums and techniques, in his perpetual quest for ever more decorative, colorful and luminous landscapes.