On May 15, 1958, the well-known Toronto art dealer G. Blair Laing visited Paul-Émile Borduas in his Paris studio. He purchased Patte de velours (1955) along with six other paintings: Les boucliers enchantés (1953, now in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario); Roses et verts (1953); Le Château de Toutânkhamon (1953, which belongs to a well-known Montreal collector); La carrière engloutie (1953); Le vent dans les ailes (1953, private collection); and Vol vertical, a later picture, circa 1958. It is clear that Laing was conservative in his choices. Canadian collectors were probably reticent in supporting Borduas’s more recent undertakings.

Most of the paintings Laing bought were from 1953, when Borduas had decided to move to New York and spent a summer in Provincetown before settling in Greenwich Village. As a matter of fact, three of the paintings purchased by Laing were painted in Provincetown: Les boucliers enchantés, Le Château de Toutânkhamon and La carrière engloutie. The other 1953 paintings were more than likely done at a later date in New York. The only really recent painting was Vol vertical, a small picture in brown, pink and black, but not typical of the bold black and white of the period.

Patte de velours, clearly dated 1955 on the painting, was the only one of its kind. It was most likely painted at the end of Borduas’s New York stay or at the beginning of his Parisian period. Borduas left America in September of 1955 and, after some difficulty in finding a studio in Paris, proceeded to produce on a regular basis until the end of the year.

It is possible that Patte de velours was shown at a joint Riopelle and Borduas show presented at the Laing Galleries in the latter part of 1958, although Hugo McPherson, who reviewed the exhibition for Canadian Art (winter 1959), does not mention it explicitly.

What can we say about the title? In French, patte de velours describes the state of a cat’s paws when the claws are drawn in. One could say then that its paws are as smooth as velvet to the touch. In a figurative sense, faire patte de velours means to hide one’s evil intention under a surface of affected sweetness. What is interesting here is less the moralistic overtone of the expression than the idea of two layers: a surface and, underneath it, something completely different, even contradictory. And indeed, at first the painting presents itself as a sumptuous surface, shimmering almost like mother-of-pearl, and prepares the stage for the beautiful Chatoiement (1956, collection of the Musée d’art contemporain, Montreal).

Borduas has completely abandoned the dichotomy of his automatist period, between background and object, between receding space and the objects floating in the foreground. On the contrary, the objects now explode and fuse with the background, achieving a nice flowing motion across the entire surface of the painting. There is no doubt that he has now assimilated the overall-ness of American painting, where no focal points can be found on the surface and no clear hierarchy established between the elements. The painting gives an impression of a take on a broader phenomenon, one that could expand away from the pictorial surface.

Upon a closer look at Patte de velours, however, it is apparent that some of the dark spots seem to create, if not real breaks in the surface, at least some tensions that will finally rupture the even surface. They are like the cat’s claws—ready to strike! Shortly afterward, Borduas would enter his Black and White period, where the black of his paintings may be read as black spots on a white background or, better yet, as ruptures on the surface opening into a black abyss. Patte de velours is a precursor of this imminent development, and that is why this superb Borduas canvas is so important.

The above essay was written by the late François-Marc Gagnon of the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art, Concordia University, in 2005.