How can we situate the singular figure that was that of the painter-engraver Rodolphe Duguay in the upheavals that, in the middle of the twentieth century, marked the history of art in our country? The Nicolet artist wanted to make a career too discreet in his hometown, far from the big cities. He lived in a time of transition when, in Quebec, economic crises, urban, social, religious and... polarized the attention of our art critics on the movements of the metropolis. But the end of the century had begun to revise "refusals" that were too globalizing... The figurative, once erased, is taking shape again, capable of serving contemporary artistic expression. Rodolphe Duguay's talent had already been celebrated: as soon as Duguay died (1973), the National Gallery of Canada organized a travelling exhibition in tribute to the engraver to recall the fame of this pioneer of wood engraving in the mid-1930s. In 1979, the Musée du Québec presented a retrospective of the artist's multifaceted production. It was high time, now, for a book to be dedicated to him.