Jean Paul Lemieux, (1904 - 1990) was one of the foremost twentieth century painters in Canada. He worked in several different styles, as represented by his five artistic periods.

Biography

He was born in

Quebec City Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the metropolitan area had a population of 839,311. It is t ...

, where he also died. He was raised in Quebec City until 1916, when his family moved to

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

. In 1917, the family returned to Quebec and settled in Montreal. From 1926 to 1934, Jean Paul Lemieux studied under

Edwin Holgate Edwin Headley Holgate (August 19, 1892 – May 21, 1977), was a Canadians, Canadian artist, painter, muralist, and wood-cut artist. Holgate played a major role in Montreal's art community, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, where he both st ...

and others at the Montreal School of Fine Arts. In 1929, he traveled to Europe with his mother. In

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, he studied advertising and art and met other artists. Lemieux took teaching positions from 1934, first at his former school, then in 1935 at the École du meuble. In 1937, he moved to Quebec City and taught at the École des Beaux-Arts de Québec until his retirement in 1965. His connections at that period include other major artists associated with these schools, such as

Alfred Pellan Alfred Pellan (born Alfred Pelland; 16 May 1906 – 31 October 1988) was an important figure in twentieth-century Canadian painting. Biography Alfred Pelland was born in Quebec City on 16 May 1906. His mother, Régina Damphousse, died when ...

and

Paul-Émile Borduas Paul-Émile Borduas (November 1, 1905 – February 22, 1960) was a Québecois artist known for his abstract paintings. He was the leader of the avant-garde Automatiste movement and the chief author of the Refus Global manifesto of 1948. Bor ...

. In 1960, works by Lemieux along with Edmund Alleyn,

Graham Coughtry Graham Coughtry (June 6, 1931January 13, 1999), was a Canadian modernist figurative painter. Biography Coughtry was born in Saint-Lambert, Quebec, on June 8, 1931. He learned to paint at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts School, then attended ...

, Frances Loring and Albert Dumouchel represented Canada at the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

Awards and honors

Jean Paul Lemieux received several awards for his works, including the Louis-Philippe Hébert prize in 1971 and the

Molson Prize The Thomas Henry Pentland Molson Prize for the Arts is awarded by the Canada Council for the Arts. Two prizes are awarded annually to distinguished individuals. One prize is awarded in the arts, one in the social sciences and humanities. The priz ...

for the

Canada Council for the Arts 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 ...

in 1974. In 1968, he became a Companion 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 cen ...

. He was also a member of the Royal Canadian Academy. In 1997, he was posthumously made a Grand Officer of the

National Order of Quebec The National Order of Quebec, termed officially in French as ''l'Ordre national du Québec'', and in English abbreviation as the Order of Quebec, is an order of merit in the Canadian province of Quebec. Instituted in 1984 when Lieutenant Governo ...

Artistic career

Lemieux was a representational artist whose painting career sometimes had echoes of folk art but, in 1956, at the age of 52, he changed his subject matter and refined his technique. The paintings which followed are among his best known. They usually feature emblematic scenes of French Canada, often combined with a sense of the vast spaces of his homeland.

Works - a selection

*''Marine, Baie Saint-Paul'', 1935 *''Notre-Dame protégeant Québec'', 1941 *''Portrait de l’artiste à Beauport-Est'', 1943 *''Le Far West'', 1955 *''Les Parques'', 1962 *''L’été de 1914'', 1965 *''Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh'', 1979 *''Dies Irae'', 1982–83

The five periods

The

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 ...

and other sources divide Lemieux's career into five periods: * Montreal period (1926–1937), marked by realistic naturalism influenced by Quebec regionalism and, later, European post impressionism. * Primitive period (1940–1947), focused on anecdote and accumulated scenic detail. * Minimalist period (1951–1955), with cubist structures, which signaled a major turning point in the artist's career. * Classical period (1956–1970), with a figures fuelled by the sources and practices of abstract art (MNBAQ). It is in this period that Lemieux produced the paintings of lonely figures in desolate, bleak landscapes for which he is so well known today. * Expressionist period (after 1970), presenting humanity living in a post nuclear attack world.

Legacy

A set of postage stamps depicting three works by Lemieux, ''Self-portrait'' (1974), ''June Wedding'' (1972) and ''Summer'' (1959) were issued by Canada Post on October 22, 2004. The stamps were released on the day that a retrospective of his work organized to recognize the centenary of the artist's birth opened at the

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 ...

. The Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (abbreviated as MNBAQ) held the exhibition ''Jean Paul Lemieux: Silence and Space'' in 2022. The Jean Paul Lemieux and Madeleine Des Rosiers fonds, R6612, is in Library and Archives Canada.

References

Sources

* * Tel qu’en Lemieux, produced and directed by Guy Robert in the artist's Quebec City studio (L’Office du film du Québec, 1973).

Université de Sherbrooke The University of Sherbrooke (French: Université de Sherbrooke) (UdS) is a large public French-language university in Quebec, Canada with campuses located in Sherbrooke and Longueuil, a suburb of Montreal approximately west of Sherbrooke. It i ...

website. ;Criticism and interpretation
The introduction to the Gaëtan Brulotte book
(see: References), written by

Anne Hébert Anne Hébert (pronounced in French) (August 1, 1916 – January 22, 2000), was a Canadian author and poet. She won Canada's top literary honor, the Governor General's Award, three times, twice for fiction and once for poetry. Early life Hébe ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Lemieux, Jean Paul 1904 births 1990 deaths 20th-century Canadian painters Canadian male painters Modern painters Grand Officers of the National Order of Quebec Companions of the Order of Canada French Quebecers Artists from Quebec City Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts École des beaux-arts de Montréal alumni 20th-century Canadian male artists