Pictura is an event dedicated to the presentation and exhibition of contemporary painting in the expanded field, across the city of Montreal.

De pictura comes from the Latin “On Painting”, a treatise written by Leon Battista Alberti in 1435, one of his three commentarii on art, and was used in the phrase “Ut pictura poesis” (as in painting, so in poetry) from Horace’s “Ars Poetica”.

Almost thirty galleries, artist-run spaces, and independent venues, exhibited the works of close to 100 artists working with the medium painting at the same time, in order to showcase the diverse range of the medium and the importance of it in Montreal, a city which has long held a very strong history of painting.

The second edition of Pictura will take place in November/December 2023.