THE TORTOISE-HARE OF ÉDOUARD AND SIMONE JAGUER

par Gilles PetitclercPierre Boulay

16 février 2026

Note: This text was originally meant to appear in the special issue of Mélusine numérique, Almanach du siècle surréaliste 2024.

In the early 1950s, as they were preparing to launch the first issue of the journal that would, over time, become one of the major avant-garde reviews of the second half of the twentieth century, Édouard and Simone Jaguer—without denying the hare’s necessary agility—already recognized the precious qualities of the tortoise. Perseverance and patience would henceforth mark the entirety of their endeavours, from yesterday to today.

Over twenty-two years (1954–1975), they published fifteen issues of Phases, followed by numerous exhibition catalogues which, in their own way, continued the goal initially defined: to document and to bear witness. The purpose to be achieved determined the action to be taken, the activities to be pursued. From that goal, they would never stray, never lose their way, never allow themselves to be distracted in any way. To act as the revelators of the artistic effervescence perceptible on all continents in the aftermath of the Second World War thus became both the driving force of their work and the primary reason for their commitment.

Joined by many collaborators and friends, they devoted almost forty years to attesting to the extraordinary richness and dazzling vitality of the avant-garde.

In Quebec, painter and poet Roland Giguère was, from the very beginning, a close ally of the cofounders, sharing their commitment. He would later become one of the most faithful collaborators of the Phases movement. The call of the “country to be built” led him to leave France—where he had been living for several years—to return to Quebec in the early 1960s. Between Paris and Montreal, silence gradually set in. Quebec then receded into the rear-view mirror of Phases.

Although the activities of the Phases movement continued through numerous exhibitions and publications across the world, it would not be until 1989 that Phases could once again spread its wings on Quebec soil. The exhibitions in Matane (1989) and La Pocatière (1990)—a prelude to the opening of the Lumière noire Gallery in Montreal—were the first tangible manifestations of the Phases movement there. Born of a meeting in Paris in January 1989, the first steps of Phases in Quebec gave rise to two decades of activity (1989–2009). Since that ninth day of January 1989, the friendship uniting Édouard and Simone Jaguer with Pierre Boulay and Gilles Petitclerc has been the driving force behind Phases’ activity in Quebec.

Pierre Boulay and Gilles Petitclerc opened the Lumière noire Gallery in Montreal on May 31, 1991. Over its five years of existence, the gallery presented painters associated with the Phases movement, most of whom were exhibiting in North America for the first time. The road was long and sometimes difficult, but patience and perseverance proved wise counsellors. Many years after the launch of the first issue of Phases, wishing to rebuild a bridge to Quebec, Édouard and Simone Jaguer—ever-watchful—found in their friends the intermediaries and fellow travellers whom long waiting had finally led to them, that January day in 1989.

It surprised no one that, on that December afternoon under Paris’s grey sun, Édouard and Simone Jaguer and their Quebecois friends decided by other means to continue the Phases adventure in Quebec. The long, difficult road they had travelled, which at first absorbed the group’s attention, soon gave way to the patient persistence of a renewed commitment, which became a powerful catalyst. The hare’s agility resurfaced; the tortoise’s virtues prevailed. Phases had already been continuing its path for a long time. A new journal was about to be born in Quebec. If, at times, for the sake of the cause, the hare’s agility saved them from a lost situation, the tortoise, true to itself, never failed the trust placed in it. Solemnly, Édouard Jaguer declared: “The Tortoise-Hare—we should call our journal The Tortoise-Hare.” The rest of the group immediately embraced the idea. On December 28, 1994, the small hybrid was born. As recounted in the first issue of the new journal, the little hybrid’s first meal, at 4:45 p.m., consisted of praline pastries and muscadet.

This new journal, published in Montreal over sixteen years at a rhythm of five issues per year, sought to extend—elsewhere and in other times—the work born of the will of the Phases cofounders in 1952. Above all, it aspired to be a place of remembrance and recognition for those who accompanied Édouard and Simone Jaguer and who, each in their own way, helped to illuminate the avant-garde of the latter half of the twentieth century.

Throughout its existence, The Tortoise-Hare acted as a mirror to a past endeavor devoid of nostalgia. The death of Simone Jaguer in January 2009 brought an end to the activities of the Phases movement, which she had cofounded with her husband in 1952. A few months later, after paying tribute to her, The Tortoise-Hare also bowed out.

Fully aware of the value that Édouard and Simone Jaguer placed on friendship and its necessary defense, the tortoise and the hare—now orphans—continue along other paths, for only the goal to be attained truly matters.

Pierre Boulay Gilles Petitclerc

See also The Tortoise-Hare on the magnificent Phases website.