Colourful canvas in EV auditorium

Here are the “universal geniuses” of the painting. See how many you can identify:

Painter Marc Chagall, sculptor Henry Moore, novelist Günther Grass, Basque sculptor Nestor Basterretxea, poet Léopold Sedar Senghor, novelist Gabriel Garcia Márquez, essayist Francis Bacon, neurologist Hans Selye, composer Hans Werner Henze, master chef Paul Bocuse, filmmaker Luis Bunuel, architect Kenz Tange, filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, dancer-choreographer Maurice Béjart, choreographer Georges Balanchine, ballet dancer Maïa Plissetskaia, actress Bette Davis, NASA director Kurt Debus and the Apollo moon mission team, artist Salvador Dali, DNA researchers Francis Crick and James Watson, opera singer Montserrat Caballé, author Marguerite Yourcenar and feminist Simone de Beauvoir.

Imaginary Portrait of 24 Universal Geniuses of Today (1980-1981)

Thanks to the patronage of Diane and Salvatore Guerrera, one of the amphitheatres of Concordia’s new EV building is graced with a large, colourful painting by Catalan artist Jesús Carles de Vilallonga. It was painted in the early 1980s. In it, Vilallonga portrays 24 of those people he considers the greatest minds of the age. Vilallonga studied art in Barcelona, Madrid, Paris and Rome. In 1958, he signed an exclusive contract with Max Stern, owner of Montreal’s Dominion Gallery and an important influence on modern art in Canada. His work has been presented around the work, and he has been the subject of several books. After living in Montreal for a number of years, Vilallonga has returned to live in Spain, where he continues to work in his studio in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter. He also designed the cover of chansonnier Gilles Vigneault’s latest book of poetry, which was launched at Concordia on Nov. 14.