Composition 69 is considered Borduas’s last canvas. It was described by Jean-Paul Filion, the poet, singer, and writer: “I am led to see this final work as the illustration of a sort of despair experienced at the limits of the cosmos. Am I wrong in imagining that?”

We will never know what turn Borduas may have taken with his art; he died too young, just fifty-five years old. Could Composition 69 indicate an about-face? A step back from his exploration of black and white? Borduas’s oeuvre culminates in an enigmatic painting.