Jean-Paul Lemieux 1904 - 1990

Biferali Fine Art, Montreal

Private Collection, Montreal

Galerie l'Art Français, Montreal

 

 

This work has been examined under UV and it is in fine condition. There are three horizontal cracks that are visible on both sides of the plywood. and some smaller horizontal cracks on the left hand side of the panel.
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In his early years, Lemieux spent his summers with fellow artists Jori Smith, Jean Palardy, and the Bouchard sisters in the Charlevoix area of Quebec, particularly near Port-au-Persil and Baie Saint-Paul. This painting from this time and place, shows Lemieux as an artist who finds in landscape a sense of society and a sense of place, both of which would come to dominate and distinguish his later work.

Lemieux's study of wood engravings may also have helped to determine the structure of these early paintings. Edwin Holgate's work in this medium was something he admired, especially Holgate's insistence on solidly structured forms. Lemieux was able to absorb this approach into his own work, and it gives the works of this period, usually known as his Montreal period (1926-1937), a strong compositional character.

For Lemieux, the summers in the Charlevoix were also the beginning in his work of a regional nationalism. He sensed the Catholic church, with its nuns and priests, the northern aspects of the environment, and the sequestered nature of the place in relation to the rest of the world. For him, this separateness became a wistful expression of his small place in the universe.