“My challenge since 1970 is 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.” ~ Fernand Leduc, 1993
Fernand Leduc Artwork Currently for Sale
Fernand Leduc
(1916 – 2014)
Born in Montreal, Fernand Leduc was an important figure in the contemporary art world of Quebec. He joined forces with a group of several rebel artists known as the Automatistes, leading them was their mentor Paul-Émile Borduas. Included in the group was the international art star Jean-Paul Riopelle. The Automatistes were a group of multidisciplinary artists, engaged in theater, dance, literature, poetry, visual arts. These artists gathered around the painter Paul-Émile Borduas in the late 1940s. Active from 1946 to 1954, the Automatistes aspired to a renewal in several important spheres of Quebec society, The Automatistes works demonstrate their desire to break down barriers and place the unconscious and subconscious at the center of creation. For them, authentic content should not be planned; and must be left in a space that encourages spontaneity, emotion and gesture. Their battles against aesthetic, political and religious dogmas were determined in 1948 in the culmination of their manifesto Refus global.
In the mid-1950s, Fernand Leduc divided his time between Montreal and Paris, he became the president and founding member of the Association des Artistes Non-Figuratifs of Montreal. Interested in colour throughout his career Fernand Leduc excelled in exploring contrasts between colors, particularly between warm and cool. We see the spontaneous forms, gestural brushwork and contrasting colours in Leduc’s early works of the Automatiste period. Leduc then moves to explore geometry and colour in his Plasticiens works of the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s. Shifting in to monochromatic painting later in his career, his monochromes, however, are intended to be landscapes, constructed from sets of colored elements in fine shades that stand out against a translucent background. These are contemplative canvases that invite the viewer to stop and meditate or to let their mind wander freely.
In 1988, Fernand Leduc was awarded the Prix Paul-Émile Borduas, Quebec’s highest honour in the visual arts. The artist was the recipient of the 2007 Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts.
Credits : Text taken directly from Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec website.