Henri Léopold Masson (January 10, 1907 – February 9, 1996) was a Canadian painter, known for his depictions of scenes in the province of Quebec.
Career
Henri Masson (born in
Spy, Belgium) was introduced to art as a youngster and had an early ambition to be an artist.
[A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, volumes 1-8 by Colin S. MacDonald, and volume 9 (online only), by Anne Newlands and Judith Parker National Gallery of Canada / Musée des beaux-arts du Canada.] He studied art in high school in Brussels as a teenager and came to Canada with his mother in 1921. They settled in Ottawa, where he was employed in a metal-engraving shop. He became a master engraver at the age of 25, a profession he would maintain until 1945.
Visiting the
National Gallery of Canada he discovered the work of the
Group of Seven and decided to become a painter. He studied at the Ottawa Art Association with George Rowles and
Franklin Brownell
Franklin Brownell (born Peleg Franklin Brownell, also known as Franklin Peleg Brownell) (July 27, 1857 – March 13, 1946) born in New Bedford, Massachusetts was a landscape painter, draughtsman and teacher active in Canada. He artistic career i ...
.
By the early 1930s Masson was associated with Les Confrères artistes Le Caveau, where he taught, exhibited, and met fellow artists
Wilfrid Flood, Tom Wood, and later,
Jean-Philippe Dallaire.
He had his first solo shows in the mid-1930s and in 1945 decided to paint full-time, choosing as his subject scenes in the province of Quebec, and later, finding subjects internationally.
Masson exhibited in numerous solo and group shows, including the
1939 World's Fair
The 1939–40 New York World's Fair was a world's fair held at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York, United States. It was the second-most expensive American world's fair of all time, exceeded only by St. Louis's Louisiana Purcha ...
, NY, International Water Colour Exhibition, Brooklyn, N.Y. (1944), ''Canadian Art in Brazil'', Rio de Janeiro (1945–46), UNESCO, Paris (1946), ''Six Canadian Painters'' West Palm Beach (1947), ''Canadian Painting'',
National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...
, Washington, D.C. (1950), Colombo International Exhibition of Modern Art, New Delhi (1953)
and the Quebec Pavilion,
Expo '70, Osaka, Japan. In 1972, Masson had a painting reproduced by UNICEF and in 1974, his painting ''Skaters in Hull'' was reproduced on a Canadian 8-cent stamp. His work is in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada the
Art Gallery of Ontario; the
Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec;
Art Gallery of Hamilton, Ont.;
Art Gallery of Windsor; and internationally in the
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.
Masson was a member of the
Ontario Society of Artists (1938), the
Canadian Group of Painters (1942), the
Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour (1942), the
Canadian Society of Graphic Art (1942), and the
Federation of Canadian Artists (1945). With
Wilfrid Flood, he was a founding member of Les Confreres du Caveau, an Ottawa association of painters.
In 1955, Masson received an LL.D. from Assumption College (now Assumption University), Windsor, Ontario. From 1948 to 1950 he was instructor of children's classes at the National Gallery of Canada; instructor at
Queen's University Queen's or Queens University may refer to:
*Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario, Canada
*Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK
**Queen's University of Belfast (UK Parliament constituency) (1918–1950)
**Queen's University of Belfast ...
Summer School (1948-1952);
Banff School of Fine Arts
Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, formerly known as The Banff Centre (and previously The Banff Centre for Continuing Education), located in Banff, Alberta, was established in 1933 as the Banff School of Drama. It was granted full autonomy as ...
(1954); Ashbury College, Ott. (1954); Doon School of Fine Arts, Ont. (1960-1964), and taught private classes at his studio. He died in 1996 in Ottawa.
Legacy
Rue Henri-Masson is a street in Sainte-Catherine, Roussillon, Quebec, in the suburbs of Montreal, named for the artist in 1979.
In 2001 the city of Ottawa honoured Masson and photographer
Yousuf Karsh for their contributions to Canadian art by naming its 457-square-metre gallery space at City Hall the Karsh-Masson Gallery.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Masson, Henri
1907 births
1996 deaths
20th-century Canadian painters
Canadian male painters
People from Namur (province)
Belgian emigrants to Canada
20th-century Canadian male artists