Atelier Muse-Art was created in 1990 as a non-profit arts organization in the Pointe Saint-Charles district of Montreal. Initiated by Gisèle Normandin and a group of local artists, the organization's goal was to provide access to the arts through the creation and sharing of cultural programs with other community groups and the general public. During its existence, from 1990 to 2005, the Atelier Muse-Art organized and produced a number of visual arts exhibitions, theater productions and art workshops.

William Henry Atherton was born on November 15, 1867, in Salford, Lancashire, England.

He was a British-born Canadian writer, historian, academic, and scholar. He was educated at Stonyhurst College, a Roman Catholic school. Upon completing his degree in philosophy and theology, he began his career as a teacher in classics at Stonyhurst College and Beaumont College in Berkshire. In 1907, Atherton emigrated to Calgary, Alberta, Canada, to follow his elderly parents. For one year, he taught at a school in Alberta. In 1908, he relocated to Quebec, where he became a faculty member at Loyola College, an anglophone Jesuit college and Collège Notre-Dame du Sacré-Cœur from 1908 until 1918. In 1918, he became a professor of English literature at the Laval University of Quebec - Montreal annex, which became the University of Montreal, where he remained a faculty member until his retirement in 1948. He also taught at the Marguerite Bourgeoys College. For over twenty years, he served on the examining board for Latin and letters for medical students at McGill University, Laval University, and the Université de Montréal. He was an active member of Montreal's literary community, writing fifty books. He wrote the books “Montreal, 1535-1914” (3 vols., 1914), “Old Montreal in the early days of British Canada, 1778-1788” (1925) and “History of the harbour front of Montréal since its discovery by Jacques Cartier in 1535” (1935). He also edited the four-volume work, “The Storied Province of Quebec” (1931-32) and was responsible for writing the volume on Montreal. Atherton was the first in Canada to give broadcast conferences on literature, history, and social reforms, aired on CFCF, a Montreal radio station from 1945. He was a historian of the British Empire Society, the Canadian Catholic Historical Society, and the Catholic Historical Society of Montreal. Rue Atherton was named in his honour by the City of Montreal in 1955. The Williams H. Atherton Award for Excellence in History is presented on an annual basis at Loyola College.

He died unmarried on July 6, 1950, in Montreal, Quebec.

Emily Tweedale, born in 1831, was the oldest surviving daughter of Lancashire woolen manufacturer John Tweedale. She was married in Whitworth in 1855 to George Atkin, a Liverpool businessman, who had inherited his father’s tea company. Later his successful firm, Geo. Atkin & Co., also invested in asphalt byproducts. Her husband, a Liberal, was also a justice of the peace for neighboring Birkenhead, where the family lived. They had nine children of whom only four survived to adulthood, three having died in October, 1870. Of her two surviving sons, one, Hope Tweedale Atkin, married Sir William Dawson’s youngest daughter Eva in 1890 in Montreal; the couple then returned to Birkenhead where their first child was born in 1891.

George Atkin was born on October 23, 1822, in Blackburn, Lancashire, England. He made his fortune firstly as a tea merchant in Blackburn and secondly as a patent asphalt manufacturer in Liverpool (George Atkin & Co.). He also held the office of Justice of the Peace. In 1855, he married Emily Tweedale. Their son Hope Tweedale Atkin married Eva Dawson, George Mercer Dawson’s younger sister. He died on February 2, 1907, in Egerton Park, Cheshire, England.

Hope Tweedale Atkin was born in Tranmere, Cheshire, England in 1857. In 1890, he was in Montreal where he married Eva Dawson, George Mercer Dawson’s younger sister. They moved to England and had three children. Their son George Dawson Hope Atkin was a British Army 2nd Lieutenant. Eva passed away in 1915 in Wales. In 1916, he remarried Florence Cross in England. He died in 1921, in Birkenhead, Cheshire, England.