Fernand Leduc

Fernand Leduc (b. 4 June 1916 Viauville, Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian abstract expressionist painter who was a major figure in the Quebec contemporary art scene in the 1940s and 1950s. During his 50-year career, Leduc has participated in many expositions in Canada, France and other countries.

Biography

In 1938 Leduc started his studies at the École des Beaux-Arts in Montreal. After graduating in 1943, he left the church and shortly after became a member of the Contemporary Arts Society. Leduc played a major role in forming the group known as the Les Automatistes, co-signing the "Refus Global" manifesto, but not contributing to the illustrated book. He moved to Paris with his wife Thérèse Renaud in 1946 and slowly distanced himself from the group. There he participated in an exhibition, called "Automatisme", at the Galerie du Luxembourg that examined the group. By late 1948, he had distanced himself from them and had joined the "Plasticiens". In Paris, Leduc developed a friendship with the painter Jean Bazaine, whose art was then in the category of abstracted landscape. This contact was an influence on Leduc's works of the early 1950s.

He returned from Paris in 1953. With Paul-Émile Borduas, the theoretician of the Automatist group, he was the one who maintained the closest ties with the French surrealists. Leduc moved to a type of hard-edge abstraction in 1955. He founded the Non-Figurative Artists' Association of Montréal ("Association des artistes non-figuratifs de Montréal") in 1956. He experimented at that time with various forms of spontaneous and gestural nonfigurative painting, his works gradually becoming more involved with interactions and contrast of colours.

Leduc returned to France in 1959 and stayed there until 1970, when he came back for two years to teach in Montréal. In 1979 he was awarded the Louis-Philippe Hébert Prize and the Paul-Émile Borduas Prize in 1988.

Leduc currently lives in Paris and Italy.

elected expositions

*1950–1951: Galerie Creuze, Paris
*1950: Cercle Universitaire, Montréal
*1955: Musée de Granby; lycée Pierre Corneille, Montréal
*1956: Galerie l'Actuelle, Montréal
*1958: Galerie Denyse Delrue, Montréal
*1959: Galerie Artek, Montréal
*1961: Délégation du Québec à Paris
*1962: Galerie Hautefeuille, Paris
*1963–1965: Galerie 60, Montréal
*1966: Musée du Québec; Musée d'Art Contemporain, Montréal
*1970 Centre Culturel Canadien, Paris; Galerie III, Montréal; Exposition rétrospective de Fernand Leduc, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal; Musée du Québec; Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon; Memorial University of Newfoundland, Saint-John; Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton; Université de Sherbrooke; The Robert Mc Laughin Gallery, Oshawa
*1972: Galerie Jolliet, Québec; Galerie III, Montréal
*1973: Tapestries Les 7 jours, Centre culturel canadien, Paris; Thielson Gallery, London, Ontario; Exposition itinérante à travers les provinces maritimes, Galerie III, Montréal
*1974: Tapestries Les 7 jours, Galerie Kostiner-Silvers, Montréal; Journées Canadiennes, Toulouse, France
*1975: Dizaine canadienne (Ten days over Canada), Lyon, France; Tapestries Les 7 jours, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Ontarion et York University, Toronto, Ontario; Michochromies, House of Canada, London, United Kingdom; Microchromies pastels, Galerie Gilles Corbeil, Montréal
*1980: Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal; Centre Canadien à Paris; Musée Municipal, Brest, France
*1984: Services Culturels du Québec, Paris
*1985: Musée des Beaux-Arts de Chartres
*1986: Musée du Nouveau Monde de La Rochelle
*1997: Musée du Québec, Québec
*2001: Galerie Graff, Montréal

ources

*The Canadian Encyclopedia 2000
* [http://www.graff.ca/autre/artistes/fernleduc.htm Galerie Graff bio, expositions]
* [http://www.collectionscanada.ca/massey/h5-301-e.html The Automatists and the Book]

uggested reading

* Jean-Pierre Duquette, "Fernand Leduc".

External links

* [http://www.mnba.qc.ca/collection/moderne06.htm Musée du Québec, Québec] With a painting L'Alpiniste, 1957.
* [http://www.galerie.uqam.ca/expo_web/gauvreau/oeuvres/1985_02.htm Untitled drawing from 1942-1943]
* [http://collections.ic.gc.ca/rondes/html/expos/art_canadien/exp_ac_019.html Composition, 1955]