Jean Paul Lemieux

Jean Paul Lemieux studied at École des beaux-arts de Montréal. Françoise Pagnuelo is recorded as having studied under Jean Paul Lemieux. The recorded working language is French. The field of work recorded is painting. Works named in the authority record are La Médecine à Québec. Work by Jean Paul Lemieux is recorded in the collections of National Gallery of Canada, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Musée de la civilisation, LeBer-LeMoyne House and Vancouver Art Gallery. Distinctions recorded are Molson Prize, Companion of the Order of Canada, Grand Officer of the National Order of Quebec and Member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.

• Name — Jean Paul Lemieux • Birth Name — Marie Joseph Jean Paul Lemieux • Born — 18 November 1904 • Birthplace — Quebec City, Canada • Died — 7 December 1990 • Place of death — Quebec City, Canada • Education — * École des beaux-arts de Montréal • École du meuble • Spouse — Madeleine Des Rosiers

He was born in Quebec City, where he also died. He was raised in Quebec City until 1916, when his family moved to Berkeley, California. In 1917, the family returned to Quebec and settled in Montreal. As a youth, Lemieux created watercolours, taking lessons in his teens from an "English lady" in Montreal. From 1926 to 1934, Jean Paul Lemieux studied with Edwin Holgate and others at the Montreal School of Fine Arts. In 1929, he traveled to Europe with his mother. In Paris, he studied advertising and art and met other artists. Lemieux took teaching positions from 1934, first at his former school, then in 1935 at the École du meuble. In 1937, he moved to Quebec City and taught at the École des Beaux-Arts de Québec until his retirement in 1965. His connections at that period include other major artists associated with these schools, such as Alfred Pellan and Paul-Émile Borduas. In 1960, works by Lemieux along with Edmund Alleyn, Graham Coughtry, Frances Loring and Albert Dumouchel represented Canada at the Venice Biennale. In 1967, he had his first major retrospective of over 100 paintings organized by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, which toured to the Musée du Québec (now MNBAQ) and the National Gallery of Canada.

Lemieux was a representational artist whose painting career sometimes had echoes of folk art but, in 1956, at the age of 52, he changed his subject matter and refined his technique. The paintings which followed are among his best known. They usually feature emblematic scenes of French Canada, often combined with a sense of the vast spaces of his homeland. Lemieux was also passionate about mural art, as it democratized the accessibility of art. He has several murals in and about Quebec City.

• Marine, Baie Saint-Paul, 1935 • Notre-Dame protégeant Québec, 1941 • Portrait de l’artiste à Beauport-Est, 1943 • Le Far West, 1955 • Les Parques, 1962 • L’été de 1914, 1965 • Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh, 1979 • Dies Irae, 1982–83

The Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec and other sources divide Lemieux's career into five periods: • Montreal period (1926–1937), marked by realistic naturalism influenced by Quebec regionalism and, later, European post impressionism. • Primitive period (1940–1947), focused on anecdote and accumulated scenic detail. • Minimalist period (1951–1955), with cubist structures, which signaled a major turning point in the artist's career. • Classical period (1956–1970), with figures fuelled by the sources and practices of abstract art. It is in this period that Lemieux produced the paintings of lonely figures in desolate, bleak landscapes for which he is so well known today. The landscapes may suggest to some the vast northern spaces of Canada. • Expressionist period (after 1970), presenting humanity living in a post nuclear attack world.

In 2011, Nineteen Ten Remembered, 42 x 57 1/2 in 106.7 x 146 cm, oil on canvas. sold for: $2,340,000 CDN (premium included) at the Fall 2011 Heffel Auction, 1st Session on Thursday, November 24, 2011.