Lot 26
JEAN-PAUL LEMIEUX, R.C.A.
Provenance:
Galerie Claude Lafitte, Montreal
Private Collection
Literature:
Dennis Reid, A Concise History of Painting in Canada, Oxford University Press, Toronto, 2006, page 292.
Guy Robert, Lemieux, Gage Publishing, Montreal, 1975, pages 39 and 88.
Note:
In the early 1930s the landscapes of celebrated Quebec painter Jean-Paul Lemieux were greatly affected by his appreciation for the work of the Group of Seven, and his friendship with his former etching instructor Edwin Holgate. On his summer breaks from teaching at the École du meuble in Montreal, and from 1937 the École des Beaux-Arts de Québec, Lemieux toured Charlevoix County and its rural villages along the Saint Lawrence working on sketches in oil and watercolour. Lemieux was frequently accompanied on these expeditions by artist friends such as Jean Palardy, Jori Smith, and his wife Madeline Desrosiers, and drew great inspiration from their companionship.
Village le Long du St-Laurent holds much in common with the artist’s landscape paintings of this period, although it was made at the cusp of a major turning point in Lemieux’s career. 1951 is commonly cited as the year in which Lemieux entered his “minimalist period” in which some of his best-loved work was created. The same year, he was awarded first prize at the concours artistiques de la province de la Québec.
Over the next five years, Lemieux focused on distilling the forms of nature down to their basic geometric components and on achieving the appearance of simplified space. This is achieved with a remarkably profound sense of depth and sensitivity in Village le Long du St-Laurent. With its cool colours and the diminutive settlement nestled between the hills and river, Village expresses the solitude in which the people of rural Quebec had resided for centuries.