Jean Paul Lemieux
1904-1990

Back to Realism / Naturalism

On November 19th, 2004, I woke up to two nice surprises.  The first one was to see Denmark all snow-powdered, a bit early for the season, but enough to remind me of the upcoming winter and Christmas Season.  The next one was that the mailman brought me this year's first Christmas greeting card from a friend in Canada, who had included a nice present:  the latest miniature sheet of paintings by the Canadian painter Jean Paul Lemieux, issued at the occasion of a Special Exhibition - Homage to Jean Paul Lemieux, 22 October 2004 - 2 January 2005. 

The exhibition was organized in honour of the centennial of the artist's birth, displaying 50 paintings and drawings by this remarkable Quebecois painter to demonstrate, among other things, the artist's unique contribution to the revitalization of landscape painting in Canada.  The exhibition opened at the National Gallery of Canada, in Ottawa, and will travel to other Canadian museums, starting with the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec in early 2005.  

• Canada 2004.  Sheet issued on 22nd October, containing three stamps of paintings by Jean Paul Lemieux.

  • 1)  Self-Portrait 1974.  167x79 cm.  Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec.

  • 2)  Summer 1959.  58x126 cm.  Museum London (Ontario).

  • 3)  A June Wedding 1972.  114x178 cm.  Société Radio-Canada/CBC.

In a presentation sheet, that was included in my friend's Christmas Greeting, Ms. Anne Sophie Lemieux writes, among other things, about her father:

I cannot help but wonder how my father, faced with the latest horrors, would have expressed on canvas the anguish that gripped him ever more firmly as he contemplated a third millennium shaped by the madness of men.  This profoundly good person, though possessed of a sense of wonder and a capacity for fun that highlighted his work with touches of humour, was deeply troubled by the human condition.  It is not surprising that he should have been so receptive to the creations of the great Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti, whose revelation of man's fragility often moved him on the visits we made to Europe's major museums when I was a child.  Sometimes, on our return from these trips to the Louvre, the Prado or Saint-Paul-de-Vence, he would be so dazzled by the paintings of the great masters that he began to doubt his own talent.  I also recall that the Symbolists made him uneasy -- he whose subjects, grounded initially in Realism, were to become increasingly Expressionist.  

My father exhibited many times and in many places throughout his long career, and I have had the pleasure of helping to disseminate his work both in Quebec and beyond.  Recently I collaborated on the production of an album consisting of a series of twelve postage stamps representing the the country's provinces and territories as envisioned by my father.  

For your viewing pleasure these stamps are shown below.  They were issued in 1984 in a sheet of twelve stamps, in celebration of Canada Day.  The stamps being rather small -- 4,00 * 2,7 cm -- and therefore difficult to see properly in a normal scan, I have scanned them oversized for a better view.  Here is a scan of the original sheet. The link will open in a new window. 

The North West Territories 
can be divided into two broad geographical regions: The taiga is the boreal forest belt that circles the subarctic zone below the "treeline." The tundra is a rocky Arctic region where the cold climate has stunted vegetation. NWT includes Great Bear Lake (31,328 sq km, eighth largest in the world); Great Slave Lake (28,568 sq km, tenth largest in the world) and the Mackenzie River (4,241 km long, Canada's longest). The ancestors of the Dene Indian people lived in the Northwest Territories some 10,000 years ago, and were joined by the Inuit who are believed to have crossed the Bering Strait about 5,000 years ago. European expeditions in the 1570s were the first recorded visits to the Northwest Territories.  

Quebec The name Quebec was applied first to the region of the modern city and the word is of undoubted Algonquin origin. Early spellings: Quebecq (Levasseur, 1601); Kébec (Lescarbot, 1609); Quebec (Champlain, 1613).   Champlain wrote of the location in 1632: "It ... is a strait of the river, so called by the Indians" - a reference to the Algonquin word for "narrow passage" or "strait" to indicate the narrowing of the river at Cape Diamond. The term is common to the Algonquin, Cree, and Micmac languages and signifies the same in each dialect.  Canada 1984.  Jean Paul Lemieux:  "View of Quebec".

All stamps world wide showing Lemieux-paintings are shown on this page, which -- at least for the moment -- is a complete collection of this painter's works as issued on postage stamps.  

This web page first appeared on my ancient website "Travelling the World on Art Stamps", presenting Canada and the provinces through her art.  

Sources and links:   

• National Gallery of Canada, Exhibitions 

• Community Contents, Release Service 

Other Realist artists on this site: 

Emily Carr (Canadian female painter) The Group of Seven (Canadian Painters) Jan Matejko (Polish painter)  Frederic Remington (United States) Jógvan Waagstein (Faeroe Islands)

H.C. Andersen (Denmark - link opens a new window) Frederick Douglass (American author)  Pauline Johnson (Canadian author) Mark Twain (American Author)

Back to Realism / Naturalism