The beasts created by Alfred Pellan are found throughout all the mediums of his artistic output: drawings, prints, paintings and sculptures. Often born of chance inspiration, at times these beasts take on the appearance of recognizable animals, but more often they spring straight from Pellan’s imagination. Sometimes peaceful and amusing, sometimes menacing, even ferocious, these strange creatures take on a number of human aspects; the artist thus creates a theater where they enact a human comedy. Although depictions of animals appear in Pellan’s works from the 1940s onwards, it is in the early 1970s that the artist introduces the theme of the bestiary, notably with a series of collages on the stonework of his home studio in Sainte-Rose. Multiple variations on this theme would follow and punctuate the remainder of his career, culminating in his last painting: the fantastic Bestiaire no. 26, completed in 1984.