Fernand Leduc
Fernand Leduc (1916-2014) - Artist Biography
Abstract painter Fernand Leduc has been a major figure in Quebec’s contemporary art scene for the past 50 years. In the 1940s, he played a major role in the formation of the group of dissident artists known as the Automatistes, which included such well-known artists as Jean Paul Riopelle, Paul-Émile Borduas and Françoise Sullivan.
In the mid-1950s, dividing his time between Montreal and Paris, he became the president and founding member of the Association des artistes non-figuratifs of Montreal. In more recent years, he focused on creating abstract landscapes, creating works featuring luminous fields of colour. After spending a good part of his life in France and Italy, he returned to Montreal in 2006.
His commitment to art was also evident in his writing and teaching. In 1988, he was awarded the Prix Paul-Émile Borduas, Quebec’s highest honour in the visual arts. He is the winner of the 2007 Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts.
“My challenge since 1970: to paint light, and to capture its energy. The path is one of reduction inherent to all artistic production, a path that becomes narrower, clearer, and luminous and leads to islands of light.” -1993
Bio courtesy of the National Gallery of Canada
Awards:
Lynch-Staunton Award, Canada Council for Arts (1977)
Louis-Philippe-Hébert Award, St-Jean-Baptiste Society of Montréal (1978)
Paul-Émile Borduas Award, Prix du Québec awarded by Québec Government (1998)
Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts (2007)
Artist Specialization: Hard-edged Colour Field Painting - Fernand Leduc moved to a type of hard-edge abstraction in 1955, his works gradually becoming more involved with interactions and contrast of colours. In Montréal, Leduc came to the defense of these more Plasticien-related theories on the occasion of the exhibition Espace 55. Reactions to the show provoked a debate between himself and Paul-Émile Borduas, who disapproved of the new directions taken by Montréal painting. By 1956 Leduc had become the president-founder of the Non-Figurative Artists' Association of Montréal. He returned to France in 1959 and stayed there until 1970, when he came back for two years to teach at Université Laval and the Université du Québec in Montréal. After this short stay in Québec, he developed the series called microchromies, a still ongoing exploration of the qualities of light as vibration and as a subtle creator of colour.
