Jean Paul Lemieux
Jean Paul Lemieux, (November18, 1904December7, 1990) was one of the foremost twentieth century painters in Canada. He worked in several different styles, as represented by his five artistic periods. Biography. 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. From 1926 to 1934, Jean Paul Lemieux studied under 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. Awards and honors. Jean Paul Lemieux received  several awards for his works, including the Louis-Philippe Hébert prize in 1971 and the Molson Prize for the Canada Council for the Arts in 1974. In 1968, he became a Companion of the Order of Canada. He was also a member of the Royal Canadian Academy. In 1997, he was posthumously made a Grand Officer of the National Order of Quebec. Artistic career. 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. The five periods. The Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec and other sources divide Lemieux's career into five periods: Legacy. A set of postage stamps depicting three works by Lemieux, "Self-portrait" (1974), "June Wedding" (1972) and "Summer" (1959) were issued by Canada Post on October 22, 2004. The stamps were released on the day that a retrospective of his work organized to recognize the centenary of the artist's birth opened at the  National Gallery of Canada. A retrospective exhibition of his works from 1956 to 1979 took place at the Gallery Valentin in 2009.