Marcel Barbeau

Marcel Barbeau

Marcel Barbeau (1925-2016) - Biography

The youngest of the Automatistes, Marcel Barbeau enrolled at the Ecole du meuble in 1942 to study cabinetmaking but upon meeting Paul-Emile Borduas, changed his focus of study to painting. He soon struck up up a friendship with Jean-Paul Riopelle and began exhibiting his work in 1945 at Borduas’ studio in Montreal where his talent for art quickly blossomed. Sharing a studio with Riopelle, the two friends were soon joined by Jean-Paul Mousseau and Claude Gauvreau and together, the artists experimented with many abstract techniques, experimenting with all types of media, working on canvas and burlap, with brushes and paint-soaked snapping strings.

Between 1958 and 1974 Barbeau lived and worked in Vancouver, Paris, New York and southern California respectively, before returning to Quebec. While in Paris, he concentrated on using pure colour and altering the viewer's optical perception. His work is found in many collections in Canada, the U.S. and Europe.

Selected Key Exhibitions:
1946: First exhibition by the Automatistes - "Open Your Eyes," The Montreal Contemporary Art Society, Dominion Gallery, Montreal.
1947: Second Automatistes exhibition at Pierre Gauvreau's residence in Montreal. 1950: "Les rebels" (The Rebels), Montreal.
1952: Paintings by Paul-Emile Borduas and a Group of Young Montreal Artists," Montreal Fine Arts Museum.

Selected Awards:
Marcel Barbeau was made Officer of the Order of Canada in 1995 and received Quebec's highest recognition for an artist, the Prix Paul-Émile Borduas, in 2013 as well as the Governor General's Award in Visual Arts the same year.

Artist Specialization: Abstract painting, beginning with a more spontaneous, expressionist approach in his early years, and later evolving into more gemoetric compositions in the 1960s and again in the 80s and 90s.