Pierre Gauvreau (23 August 19227 April 2011) was a Québécois painter and writer who also worked in film and television production.

Career

He was born 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 ...

, and enrolled at the

École des Beaux-Arts de Montréal École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région ...

in 1937, today part of UQAM. He became a member of the

Contemporary Art Society The Contemporary Art Society (CAS) is an independent charity that champions the collecting of outstanding contemporary art and craft for UK museum collections. Since its founding in 1910 the organisation has donated over 10,000 works to museums ...

in 1939. Gauvreau served overseas with the Canadian Army and on his return to Montreal, went back to the École des Beaux-Arts for two more years of study. He was associated with Quebec artistic dissident group

Les Automatistes Les Automatistes were a group of Québécois artistic dissidents from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The movement was founded in the early 1940s by painter Paul-Émile Borduas. Les Automatistes were so called because they were influenced by Surrea ...

, showing his work in the first Automatist exhibition in Canada in 1946. The second Automatist show took place in his mother`s apartment, the home he shared with his brother,

Claude Gauvreau Claude Gauvreau (August 19, 1925 – July 7, 1971 in Montreal, Quebec) was a Canadian playwright, poet, sound poet and polemicist. He was a member of the radical Automatist movement and a contributor to the revolutionary Refus Global Manifest ...

, a writer, and it was at this exhibition that the group was first referred to as the Automatistes. He became a signatory to the ''

Refus global Le Refus global ( en, Total Refusal, link=yes) was an anti-establishment and anti-religious manifesto released on August 9, 1948, in Montreal by a group of sixteen young Québécois artists and intellectuals that included Paul-Émile Borduas, Jea ...

'' manifesto, which he typed and printed in his apartment.OBITUARY Alan Hustak, Pierre Gauvreau helped launch Quebec's Quiet Revolution
/ref> The publication contained reproductions of his recent paintings. Gauvreau worked in various aspects of television production during the 1950s. He was best known in French-Canada for his popular series, ''Temps d'une paix''. During a stint at the

National Film Board The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary fi ...

, he also produced

Claude Jutra Claude Jutra (; March 11, 1930 – November 5, 1986) was a Canadian actor, film director, and screenwriter.

's 1971 classic, ''Mon Oncle Antoine''. He took a break from painting during the 1960s until 1975. In the 1990s he began experimenting with new techniques, including spray paint. He continued to paint in 2005, true to his Automatist beginnings. His work has been described as gestural and calligraphic and his later work as looking lace-like. Selected collections include 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 l ...

, Ottawa; 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 ...

; 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 ...

, Québec; and many other galleries, including the

Robert McLaughlin Gallery The Robert McLaughlin Gallery is a public art gallery in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest public art gallery in the Regional Municipality of Durham, of which Oshawa is a part. The gallery houses a significant collection of Canadian conte ...

, Oshawa. Gauvreau's career was the subject of a

Charles Binamé Charles Binamé (born May 25, 1949) is a Quebec director. He was born in Belgium and came to Montreal with his family at a young age. He joined the National Film Board of Canada as an assistant director in 1971, but soon left for the private sect ...

documentary, ''l'obligation de la liberté'', and a biography. One of his works, ''The Bottom of the Closet'', was reproduced on a 45-cent postage stamp in 1998 for a set of seven stamps for the Automatistes. Gauvreau died on 7 April 2011 of heart failure at the age of 88.

Awards and recognition

*1990:

Prix Gemeaux Prix was an American power pop band formed in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1975 by Tommy Hoehn and Jon Tiven. The group ended up primarily as a studio project. Its recordings were produced by Tiven along with former Big Star member Chris Bell, who als ...

, Grand Prix for his film and television work *1995: ''le Prix Louis-Philippe-Hébert''

References

Bibliography

External links

* *
Fonds Pierre Gauvreau (R1318)
at

Library and Archives Canada Library and Archives Canada (LAC; french: Bibliothèque et Archives Canada) is the federal institution, tasked with acquiring, preserving, and providing accessibility to the documentary heritage of Canada. The national archive and library is th ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gauvreau, Pierre 1922 births 2011 deaths 20th-century Canadian painters Canadian male painters 21st-century Canadian painters Artists from Montreal École des beaux-arts de Montréal alumni 20th-century Canadian male artists 21st-century Canadian male artists Canadian abstract artists

Career

Awards and recognition

See also

References

Bibliography

External links