Fonds

Focussed primarily on the personal life of Gilberte Christin de Cardaillac, this fonds documents her interests, relationships, and various private, family and social events that marked her life from adolescence to death. As a chronicle of Gilberte's status and activities in Montreal society, it provides a wealth of information about the culture of Quebec's French-speaking bourgeoisie in the 20^th century.

This collection of archives also documents the artistic creation process of Gilberte Christin de Cardaillac, which included trips in Quebec and Europe that provided a backdrop for many of her works, the places and subjects that inspired her, her creative process, and the media used (primarily watercolour). It also records some exhibitions the watercolour artist participated in, awards won and media coverage of her work.

The fonds contains personal and biographical documents like identification cards, a résumé and biographical notes, legal documents like a birth certificate, a death certificate and wills, and several invoices. There are letters that Gilberte and her husband Galiot de Cardaillac exchanged with friends, family members and politicians like Jean Drapeau, in addition to sympathy cards and letters sent to Bertrand de Cardaillac following the death of his mother. In addition, there are several postcards sent primarily from France, but also from the Gaspé Peninsula and Stanbridge.

The thirteen scrapbooks created by Gilberte from 1918 to 1975 make up a substantial part of the corpus of documents. Primarily containing drawings, typed and handwritten texts, riddles, reading lists, addresses of friends and family, press clippings, collectible cards from boxes of tea, greeting cards and invitations, these scrapbooks provide a remarkably uninterrupted record of the private and social lives of their creator, as she grew from a teen to a young woman of the 1920s, and became a wife, mother and grandmother. An additional scrapbook is devoted solely to a 1955 trip to Europe. Sketchbooks, greeting cards and watercolours illustrate Gilberte's artistic work, as do an invitation to an exhibition and press clippings.

Cookbooks, various ephemera, an autograph book and over 1,000 photographs (many of which are collected in four albums) complete this collection of documents.