Réne Marcil
Réne Marcil (1917-1993) - Artist Biography
René Marcil (1917-1993) was a painter, draftsman, fashion illustrator, and commercial artist born in Montreal in 1917. He is particularly known for the fashion illustrations he created while working at various department stores and later developing a more abstract style within the Lyrical Abstraction and Neo-Expressionist movements.
In 1931 at age fourteen, Marcil enrolled in L’école des Beaux Arts in Montreal, where his artistic skills were praised nurtured. After having graduated in 1935 Marcil was hired as an engraver, servicing the advertising industry. He would later work as an advertising illustrator in Montreal department stores Morgan’s and later Eaton’s, where he became one of their star commercial artists. In 1941 he and his wife Evelyn Rowat, who he met while working at Eaton’s, moved to New York. There he and Evelyn worked as fashion illustrators for Lord & Taylor. Soon, his elegant, polished, distinguished illustrations were reproduced in the New York Times. His interpretations of models wearing Christian Dior's "New Look", launched in 1947, helped establish the style.
Marcil became known for his use of pure line and the general elegance and exquisite style of his work and by 1952 he and his wife decided to move to Paris where he joined La Grande Chaumiere a shared studio of artists. During this time, his artistic skills were once again able to flourish and develop. Working closely in the lyrical abstraction movement, he began painting large abstract oil paintings and figurative drawings.
In the mid–60's René, moved to London, England. During this time, he continued to visit the south of France frequently.
As his abstract and figurative works evolved, he leant more and more to neo-expressionist forms of expression. His talent as a colourist became evident along with his idealization of visual perception. His works express his continuous exploration of human behaviour which is focused on emotional and social connection. Marcil died on September 25th, 1993 in Toronto, Ontario.
Selected Permanent Collections:
Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, Palais du Louvre
Art Gallery of Algoma, ON
Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, NS
Artist Specialization: Olivier Gabet, President and Director of the Louvre Museum wrote that Marcil's "expressive and refined sketches - enable one to appreciate the dissemination of fashion trends in the media and the history of fashion illustration style." In 1950, in Paris, Marcil enrolled at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière for two years. There, influenced by artists that he met such as Sonia Delaunay, he discovered Neoplasticism, a creed which involved the basic elements of painting, colour, line, form, used only in their purest, most fundamental state. Later he combined this influence with his own personal homage to the great masters of painting, such as Picasso, Matisse and Cezanne, and with his innate desire to express himself, he found himself as an artist. His paintings were at first figurative but evolved towards abstraction, yet his work remained hybrid, reaching towards expression whether abstract or figurative, poetic in colour and composition as a curator from the Metropolitan Museum acknowledged. – Joan Murray, Art Historian
