Claude Tousignant (born December 23, 1932 in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

artist. Tousignant is considered to be an important contributor to the development of

geometric abstraction Geometric abstraction is a form of abstract art based on the use of geometric forms sometimes, though not always, placed in non-illusionistic space and combined into non-objective (non-representational) compositions. Although the genre was popu ...

in Canada.

Biography

Claude Tousignant was born in

. From 1948 to 1951, he attended the School of Art and Design at the

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA; french: Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, MBAM) is an art museum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the largest art museum in Canada by gallery space. The museum is located on the historic Golden Square ...

where he studied under

Arthur Lismer Arthur Lismer, LL. D. (27 June 1885 – 23 March 1969) was an English-Canadian painter, member of the Group of Seven and educator. He is known primarily as a landscape painter and for his paintings of ships in dazzle camouflage. Early life ...

Louis Archambault Louis Archambault (April 4, 1915 – January 27, 2003) was a Quebec sculptor and ceramicist, who was one of the members of the "new sculpture" movement in Canada that moved away from traditional methods towards abstraction. Career Born in M ...

Marian Dale Scott Marian Mildred Dale Scott (; 1906–1993) was a Canadian painter. Life She was born Marian Mildred Dale in Montreal on 26 June 1906.https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/marian-mildred-dale-scott She showed talent at an early age: he ...

Jacques de Tonnancour Jacques Godefroy de Tonnancour, LL. D. (3 January 1917 – 13 January 2005) was a Canadian artist and art educator from Montreal, Quebec. Life and work Jacques Godefroy de Tonnancour was born on 3 January 1917 in Montreal, Quebec. He studied a ...

and Gordon Webber. He then travelled to Paris where he studied at the

Académie Ranson The Académie Ranson was founded in Paris by the French painter Paul Ranson (1862–1909), who himself studied at the Académie Julian, in 1908.

. returning to Montreal in the spring of 1952.

Artistic career

Tousignant is considered a member of the second generation of the modern art movement in Montreal called "

les Plasticiens The Plasticien movement was a Canadian non-figurative painting movement, which appeared around 1955 in Quebec. It was a more orderly style of painting in reaction to Les Automatistes In 1954, a young critic and painter newly returned from Paris, , ...

". This group of four painters (Jean-Paul Jérôme, Louis Belzile, Rodolphe de Repentigny and Fernand Toupin) felt painting should be pure form and colour; meaning and spontaneous expression were to be avoided. In 1962, Tousignant introduced the form of the circle, which would become his signature motif, into his geometric paintings.

Awards

Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts The Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts are annual awards for achievements in visual and media arts in Canada. Up to eight awards are presented annually with the prize amount is $25,000 Created in 2000 by then Governor General Adrie ...

(2010) * Paul-Émile Borduas Prize (1989) * Officer of the

Order of Canada The Order of Canada (french: Ordre du Canada; abbreviated as OC) is a Canadian state order and the second-highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the ...

(1976) *

Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award The Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award is a monetary award given since 1971 by the Canada Council for the Arts to Canadian artists judged to be outstanding in their mid-careers. Since 2005, the award is given to one recipient in each of the followi ...

(1974) * Prize from the Canadian Institute of Rome (1973) * First prize (painting), Perspective' 67, Toronto (1967) * First prize (painting), Salon de la Jeune Peinture, Paris (1962) * Member,

Royal Canadian Academy of Arts The Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA) is a Canadian arts-related organization that was founded in 1880. History 1880 to 1890 The title of Royal Canadian Academy of Arts was received from Queen Victoria on 16 July 1880. The Governor General ...

Museum collections

Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is located in Ridgefield, Connecticut Ridgefield is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. Situated in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains, the 300-year-old community had a population o ...

, Ridgefield, Connecticut (USA) * Artothèque de Montréal *

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; french: Musée des beaux-arts de l'Ontario) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is located in the Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, on Dundas Street West between McCaul and Beve ...

, Toronto *

Canada Council The Canada Council for the Arts (french: Conseil des arts du Canada), commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown corporation established in 1957 as an arts council of the Government of Canada. It acts as the federal government's principal i ...

Art Bank, Ottawa *

Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal The Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (MACM) is a contemporary art museum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located on the Place des festivals in the Quartier des spectacles and is part of the Place des Arts complex. Founded in 1964, it is ...

Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec The Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec ( en, National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec), abbreviated as MNBAQ, is an art museum in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The museum is situated in Battlefield Park and is a complex consisting of four bui ...

, Quebec City *

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (french: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the l ...

, Ottawa *

Phoenix Art Museum The Phoenix Art Museum is the largest museum for visual art in the southwest United States. Located in Phoenix, Arizona, the museum is . It displays international exhibitions alongside its comprehensive collection of more than 18,000 works of ...

, Arizona (USA) *

Vancouver Art Gallery The Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) is an art museum in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The museum occupies a adjacent to Robson Square in downtown Vancouver, making it the largest art museum in Western Canada by building size. Designed by Franc ...

, British Columbia *

York University York University (french: Université York), also known as YorkU or simply YU, is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's fourth-largest university, and it has approximately 55,700 students, 7,0 ...

, Toronto

References

External links

perspectives sur Claude Tousignant
A retrospective of his work curated by the Musée d'Art Contemporain de Montréal. {{DEFAULTSORT:Tousignant, Claude 1932 births Living people Canadian sculptors Canadian painters Officers of the Order of Canada Artists from Montreal Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts winners Canadian abstract artists