Les quatre saisons, 1981
Spraypaint on asbestos cement
4 murals, original length 152,2m × height 2,4m each
Location: Snowdon station, platforms (temporarily removed) 'Été' mural, eastern part
"Été" mural, eastern part

Les quatre saisons by Claude Guité - Hiver
"Hiver," Côte-Vertu platform

"Automne," Snowdon platform

"Printemps," Montmorency platform

"Été," Saint-Michel platform

These four brilliantly coloured murals, on some 500 panels of asbestos cement stretching the entire length of the platforms, portray semi-abstract scenes of the foliage and weather associated with each of the four seasons. The seasons go in order, counterclockwise around the platforms (when facing west), with winter at Côte-Vertu, spring at Montmorency, summer at the Saint-Michel departure plaform, and autumn at the Snowdon arrival platform.

This work doesn't really have a message; the idea was just to make people happy. This station is very deep and rather dark. Without these murals, it could have been disturbing for some passengers. The four seasons are a comfortable theme for everyone, which is important since Snowdon station is in a multicultural neighbourhood.
— Claude Guité
(Info STM, "Les artistes du métro de Montréal: Claude Guité", Métro, 1 November 2004, p. 7)

Click on the thumbnails below for full-length panoramic views of the murals prior to restoration (~64 kb each)

Restoration work

Unfortunately, these beautiful works became the best-known victims of the graffiti that plagues the metro. They were installed on a relatively fragile medium without protection simply because nobody, including the artist, realized that they could be vandalized, since they are located above the rails. Nevertheless, they were graffitied shortly after their installation. The artist was called upon to repaint parts of the murals in 1983. Worse yet, attempts to remove more spraypainted vandalism in 1985 destroyed large sections of the paintings on the orange line, since the paintings themselves are spraypainted. (The blue line panels were spared as that section of the station was not opened to the public until 1988.)

In late 2004, the murals were removed. The most heavily damaged panels will be completely repainted by the artist, and the rest cleaned and restored. Over time they will be reinstalled with new protective measures. However, due to the cost of this restoration, only certain sections — those in front of the corridors toward the platforms — will be reinstalled initially. The rest will be carefully stored until the STM has the budget to reinstall them. As of 2009, only the three sections of the "Summer" mural on the Saint-Michel platform and the four sections of "Spring" on the Montmorency platform have been reinstalled.

Snowdon platform after the removal of the murals
Claude Guité repainting a part of the Printemps mural
The artist repainting part of the Printemps mural

External links:

Info STM: Une oeuvre d'art quitte temporairement la station Snowdon: Cure de rajeunissment pour Les quatre saisons (29 Oct 2004); .pdf format, in French

Info STM: Les artistes du métro de Montréal — Claude Guité (1 Nov 2004); .pdf format, in French

Image hiver.jpg courtesy STM; image refection-printemps.jpg by Michel Guité, courtesy STM and Benoît Clairoux.