Jean-Paul Jérôme (February 18, 1928 August 14, 2004) was a painter, designer and sculptor, who was a co-founder of
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, , ...
in 1955. He was a key figure in Quebec's abstract art scene of the second half of the 20th century.
Career
Jérôme was born in Montreal and attended the
École des Beaux-Arts de Montréal (1944-1949). Among his subjects at the school was fresco painting with
Stanley Cosgrove
Stanley Cosgrove (December23, 1911 April28, 2002) was a Canadian painter, draughtsperson and muralist.A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, volumes 1-8 by Colin S. MacDonald, and volume 9 (online only), by Anne Newlands and Judith Parker National Ga ...
. Later, while working at
Radio Canada in props and as a decorator, Jérôme's paintings were shown in the annual
Art Association of Montreal
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 ...
Spring Shows (1951-1953), in the Quebec Provincial Exhibition of 1952 and in a first solo show at the
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (1954).
He also met
Louis Belzile
Louis Belzile (April 17, 1929 – February 12, 2019) was one of the main figures of geometric abstraction in painting in Quebec and one of the members of the Plasticiens group in Montreal along with Jauran (Rodolphe de Repentigny), Jean-Paul Jé ...
,
Fernand Toupin
Fernand Toupin (1930, Montreal–2009 Terrebonne) was a Québécois abstract painter best known as a first-generation member of the avant-garde movement known as Les Plasticiens. Like other members of the group, his shaped paintings drew upon ...
and
Rodolphe de Repentigny (Jauran)).
In 1955 he joined with Belzile, Jauran and Toupin to write the "Manifeste des Plasticiens", a reaction against the paintings of
Borduas
Borduas is a provincial electoral district in the Montérégie region of Quebec, Canada that elects members to the National Assembly of Quebec. It notably includes the municipality of Beloeil, Mont-Saint-Hilaire and Otterburn Park.
It was crea ...
and his followers towards more geometric structure and control. In 1956 Jérôme became a member of the Non-Figurative Artists Association of Montreal.
[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 travelled to Paris in 1956 and remained there till 1958, also travelling to Italy, Switzerland and Austria. While abroad, he met
Giacometti and
Vasarely
Victor Vasarely (; born Győző Vásárhelyi, ; 9 April 1906 – 15 March 1997) was a Hungarian-French artist, who is widely accepted as a "grandfather" and leader of the Op art movement.
His work entitled ''Zebra'', created in 1937, is consid ...
and found he shared with artist René Mortensen and others an affinity for a harmony between shapes and colours. He also learned from the wide variety of artists he met about the multitude of approaches open to abstraction.
In 1957 he had a solo show at Galerie Arnaud in Paris. Upon Jérôme's return to Montreal, he taught visual arts at the École des Beaux-Arts in Montreal. He had a solo show at Denyse Delrue Gallery in 1959 for which Montreal professor and writer Jean Simard wrote the catalogue and said that he had seen the works in the show in Paris and he had been struck by Jérôme's Canadian and specifically northern colour.
In 1960, Jérôme had a solo show of abstract pastels at Galerie Libre
followed by numerous exhibitions at private and public galleries. When he retired from teaching in 1973 he set up a large studio in his former family home and continued making nonrepresentational art. In 1978, he was made a member of the
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 ...
.
In 2001, the Musée du Bas Saint-Laurent had a
retrospective
A retrospective (from Latin ''retrospectare'', "look back"), generally, is a look back at events that took place, or works that were produced, in the past. As a noun, ''retrospective'' has specific meanings in medicine, software development, popu ...
exhibition titled ''Jean-Paul Jérôme: modern vibrations'' of his paintings and in 2005, the Musée des Beaux Arts de Sherbrooke devoted a retrospective to the Plasticiens. A documentary film titled ''Jean-Paul Jérôme: Color, Light, Form'' was made about Jérôme's work which was shown at the Festival International du Film sur l'Art de Québec in 2018. The Musée d’art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul held an exhibition of his work in 2019 and also in 2019, the Joliette Art Museum held an exhibition titled ''Jean-Paul Jérôme: The Lyrical Abstractions''.
Selected public collections
* National Gallery of Canada;
*Musee d’art contemporain de Montréal;
* Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec;
References
Further reading
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Jérôme, Jean-Paul
1928 births
2004 deaths
Canadian male painters
Artists from Quebec
People from Montreal
20th-century Canadian painters
21st-century Canadian painters
Canadian abstract painters
20th-century Canadian male artists
21st-century Canadian male artists
Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts