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“I’m sort of a big, wingless fairy,” said Evergon, born Albert Jay Lunt. “I leave room for fantasy and magic.

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“In this post-Trumpian age; because I think it’s a way to exist. Often fantasy is a moment of freedom. We don’t exactly live in a non-hostile world, so it could be an escape. But I’m pretty grounded.”

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The Montreal photographer and Concordia professor emeritus, who at 76 has become something of an icon for his vast, playful oeuvre of homoerotic images, won a Governor General’s Award on Tuesday for artistic achievement in visual and media arts.

“I’m gobsmacked,” Evergon said of the honour. “I’m getting up in years. Thank God they made the deadline. For me it’s just a confirmation of the career I’ve had for the past 50 years.

“I hope it’s a support for gay art and gay artists, including the whole range of LGBTQ, etc. etc.”

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Evergon has been making gay art since almost before it was a thing.

“I started at a time when there were very few or no role models, so it’s about survival. Any (gay) artist who survives in this country should be applauded.”

He not only survived but thrived, his classically-inspired, mostly male nudes earning him exhibitions across Canada, in the U.S. and Europe. He has works in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada, and there is currently a major retrospective of more than 230 of his works, titled Evergon: Théâtre de l’intime, at the Musée national des beaux arts du Québec until April 23.

He earned a BA in visual arts from Mount Allison University in 1970, then added a master’s from Rochester Insitute of Technology. That classicist education informed his photography going forward.

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“I make paintings but with the camera,” Evergon said. “I’m a terrible painter, I learned that in university. Light was seen as a drawing tool early on, and I think that’s fine. It’s art, you do what you want to do.”

What he wanted was to photograph the men in his life — often his lovers — and have fun in the process.

“A lot of the work has been adults playing children’s games,” he said.

“I’m a gay man, so I (photograph) men. I’ve always maintained you can have husbands, boyfriends and lovers. You just had to know what title they got and how they played out in your lives.”

For that reason, his exhibition in Quebec City was a “walk down memory lane,” he said. “I went the other day and there was a real tristesse to being there, for me.”

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Being what he calls a “traditional faggot,” Evergon always wanted to photograph his mother. He had been asking for years for her to pose for him before she finally agreed in 1999, at the age of 80. The resulting nude series, Margaret and I, is both beautiful and touching.

“I was intimidated by it,” Evergon said of the experience. “I thought it would shock her reality to have her undress, and she did. At that point, I was running for cameras and lights and thinking, ‘What am I doing?’

“I feel really proud of her, and proud for her. I think the images present her positively. At 80, she was still a gutsy woman.”

For a time, Evergon was called the “bad boy of Canadian art,” a title he admits to enjoying.

“For me, eroticism is in the mind of the beholder,” he said, “not in the mind of the maker, so much. It gives me a really diverse audience. Some people love my work, some hate it. I think if you have people who hate the work, you’ve probably done your job.”

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