Les Ursulines, 1982
Oil on canvas, 61 x 76 cm
Collection du Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec
May 11 to August 31, 2008
Preview: May 25, 2008, 2 p.m.
From May 11 to August 31, 2008, the Musée d’art de Joliette (MAJ) invites you to an exhibition devoted to the “classic” period of Jean Paul Lemieux, between 1950 and 1975. The show comprises eighteen works that illustrate his pictorial and iconographic maturity and reveal his artistic personality. These works, selected from the collection of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, brought Lemieux international recognition and reputation.
Demonstrating a mastery and dedication based on simplification and refinement, the paintings of this period are full of keys to the meaning of his oeuvre. These indications are mainly to be found in the shape of the canvases, where notions of time and space are reflected in the horizontality of the composition. Lemieux’s exploration of artistic expression established defined aesthetic elements that were to characterize his work to the end of his life. It is these specific elements that this exhibition is designed to highlight.
The exhibition Jean Paul Lemieux. La période classique, 1950-1975 is organized and circulated by the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, a public corporation funded by the ministère de la Culture, des Communications et de la Condition féminine du Québec.
Jean Paul Lemieux (1904-1990) was born in Quebec City. From 1926 to 1934 he studied at the Montreal School of Fine Arts, where he obtained a teaching position. A year later he left to take up a post at the l’École du meuble de Montréal. From 1937 on, he was professor of drawing and painting at the École des beaux-arts de Québec, and taught there until his retirement in 1967. Jean Paul Lemieux is recognized today as a major artist both within Canada and across the world.