In August 1976, my soon-to-be wife, Susan, and I rented a top-floor apartment in a four-floor walk-up building on Chemin Queen Mary in Montreal. We had the apartment on the south-east corner of the building and our new neighbours, Marcelin and Roseline Cardinal, lived in the apartment on the north-east corner. Within a week of our moving in, we met and became friends with Roseline and Marcelin. (Figure 1. Marcelin Cardinal, circa 2008).
I was a graduate student at McGill University, and Susan and I lived in that apartment building until August 1981 when I graduated with my PhD. During those years, we spent quite a bit of time with Marcelin and Roseline, and I learned a lot about art and the life of an artist from Marcelin. I also begin collecting art during those first 5 years of our friendship. After my studies at McGill, Susan and I moved to Riverside, California (1981-84), then Halifax, Nova Scotia (1984-89), and finally Fredericton, New Brunswick (1989-2016) as I pursued my career. My work and Susan and my family obligations would often take us to or through Montreal and we would always stop in to visit with Roseline and Marcelin. Marcelin and Roseline had moved into the apartment building in July 1974 and when they finally moved into a more accessible apartment a few blocks away in December 2015, I went to Montreal to help them move. So, one reason why I have set up this webpage is because of my longstanding friendship with Marcelin and Roseline. (Figure 2. Roseline and Marcelin, summer 1979).
As you can see on the exhibitions section of this webpage, Marcelin had a large number of solo and collective exhibitions of his art between 1947 and 1990. Marcelin had no exhibitions after 1990 even though he continued to be very productive until just a couple of years before his death in 2019. Marcelin told me that he had been disappointed with the promotion of this last exhibition. The paintings in the exhibition were of a very high standard and they sold well but, according to Marcelin, the gallery owners had failed to invite or notify the press to review the exhibition. I have not been able to find a review of this last 1990 exhibition on the internet and Marcelin does not have a press review in his “Itinéraire” as he does for many of his other exhibitions. Marcelin’s absence from the art market lowered his profile and by the time the internet became available for public use in the mid-1990s, Marcelin was in his mid-70s and was, essentially, unaware of this developing technology. Marcelin continued to sell paintings, but he did this privately on his own.
A quick search of the internet will show that prior to 2020, very little of Marcelin’s work had come up on the resale market. Since then, a few pieces have come up, but some have sold below their estimated value. The reason for this, I believe, is that gallery owners and art collectors are no longer familiar with Marcelin and his work. To begin remedying this situation, Roseline and I wrote a “Lives Lived” article which appeared in the Globe and Mail on April 1, 2020*. We got this in just under the wire as these articles have to appear within 6 months of the person’s death. It was after this article was published that I decided to create this website and, eventually, to begin writing these blogs. (Figure 3. Marcelin, Susan, and Roseline, circa 2012).
I was a research scientist before my retirement in 2014. I took art and art history in grades 9 through 13 at my high school in Toronto but, that was a very long time ago so, I am not an expert on art. I was very fortunate to move in next door to Roseline and Marcelin those many years ago not only for the long-lasting friendship that it has brought me, but it also got me started collecting art much of it, Marcelin’s. I have lived with many of Marcelin’s works for more than 45 years. They have brightened and warmed many a winter’s day and each one holds memories of not only my friendship with Roseline and Marcelin but also how each work came into my life. Marcelin’s art is in more than 150 private and corporate collections. One reason why one doesn’t see many of Marcelin’s works on the re-sale market, I believe, is because other collectors feel the same about their Cardinals as I do about mine. As a result, pieces only come onto the market when a collector can’t take their works with them.
Christopher Lucarotti
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