"I paint by instinct without philosophical or pictorial reasoning. It's a world I invent poetically and in exaltation." - Leon Bellefleur

Leon Bellefleur was a very important Canadian painter, printmaker and graphic artist who worked into his nineties. His career includes a solo exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada, and group exhibitions with the Guggenhiem International and CoBrA*. His works are included in most exhibitions that examine the scope of 20th Century Canadian art and in most recent books that discuss Canadian modern art. His paintings are in many major Canadian museums and he's won numerous prestigious awards. Among his distinguished associates were Andre Breton (1), Alfred Pellan and Paul-Emile Borduas.

He was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, lived most of his life in or near there and died there. He also lived in Paris for ten years (1954 - 1965) and for five years in Deschambault, Quebec (1965 - 1970), about 175 miles east of Montreal.

His mediums were oil, watercolor, gouache, pen and ink, brush and ink, graphite, etching, serigraph, lithograph and mixed mediums. His subjects are color, shape, texture, dreams, the subconscious and fantasy. His primary style is Surrealism* in a vein similar to that of Klee, Kandinsky and Miro. AskART has some very good illustrations of his mature work.

Quote: "Mystery works and is everywhere in life, around us and even in us, especially in art, I feel. A work without mystery is not a work of art; it is just a decorative object, made with a great deal of craftsmanship, but without soul or inner life, without mystery, in fact, and without wonder!" - Leon Bellefleur.

His formal education began with three years at Jacques Cartier Teachers College. He graduated with a Teacher's Certificate in 1929 and taught high school for 25 years in Montreal. His formal art education includes evening drawing classes at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Montreal (c.1929 - 1936). After retiring from teaching in 1954, he moved to Paris where, he set up a studio and studied etching with Johnny Friedlaender (1954 - 1955); and later lithography at the Ateliers Desjaubert (1958 - 1959).(2)

His associates included André Breton whom he met in Paris; and Alfred Pellan, Albert Dumouchel, Jacques de Tonnancour, Jeanne Rhéaume, Paul-Emile Borduas and Goodridge Roberts, all of whom he had known in Canada since the early 1940s.

He was also a member of several artist groups such as the Contemporary Arts Society* (1943), Prisme d'Yeux* (1948), the Canadian Society of Graphic Art* (1955), the Canadian Group of Painters* (1955), and the Non Figurative Artists' Association of Montreal* (1956). He was elected a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts* in 1989.

In addition to exhibiting with the above artist groups, he has also exhibited in three Canadian Biennials at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (1957, 1959, 1961); at most of the Annual Spring Shows at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, between 1947 and 1958; and with the Ontario Society of Artists in 1959; as well as at numerous important specific subject Canadian group shows. (3)

Some of the other Canadian exhibitions, in which his works have been included, are: "Four Painters of Quebec", Art Gallery of Toronto [with Fernand Leduc, Lemieux and Picher] (1957); "Surrealism in Canadian Painting", Museum London, Ontario (1964); "Three Hundred Years of Canadian Art", National Gallery of Canada (1967); "Panorama of Painting in Quebec: 1940 - 1966", Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art (1967); "Three Generations of Quebec Painting", Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art (1976); "The Contemporary Art Society, Montreal 1939 - 1948", Edmonton Art Gallery (1980); "The Language of Landscape", Art Gallery of Nova Scotia Halifax (1989); "Hybrid: Between Surrealism and Abstraction", Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario [with Shadbolt, Marian Scott and Pellan] (2001); "Plastic Universe", Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario (2003); and "The Place of Magic! The Forties, Fifties and Sixties in Québec - Part II", Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art (2006).

Of special note, in 1958 he was one of the ten Quebec painters who exhibited with the Painters Eleven* at the Park Gallery, Toronto. It was the only time P11 had a joint show with the avant-garde artists of French Canada. Some of the other artists included were Jean-Paul Riopelle, Paul-Emile Borduas, Jean McEwen, Jacques de Tonnancour, Paterson Ewen and Alfred Pellan.(4)

In addition to exhibiting in the above Canadian exhibitions, his works have been included in several important international group exhibitions including the "Second International CobrA Exhibition", Liège, Belgium (1951); the São Paolo Biennial*, Brazil (1951); "International Phases Exhibition", Galerie Creuse, Paris, 1955; "International Engraving and Drawing Exhibition", Lugano, Switzerland, (1956); "International Engraving Exhibition, Ljubljana, Yugoslavia" (1957); "Guggenheim International Exhibition", New York (1960); the Brussels World´s Fair, Belgium (1958); "Canadian Art", Galerie Arditti, Paris [with Alleyn, Borduas, Ferron and Riopelle] (1962); and "Festival of Two Worlds", Spoleto, Italy (1962).

His work has also been the subject of a retrospective at the National Gallery of Canada in 1968; and two exhibitions at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, with Fritz Brandtner in 1950 and with Anne Kahane in 1954.

Through the years, venues for his private gallery shows have included the Agnès Lefort Gallery, Montreal; Galerie l'Actuelle, Montreal; Galerie Denyse Delrue, Montreal; Galerie du Siècle, Montreal; Dresdnere Gallery, Montreal; Here and Now Gallery (Dorothy Cameron Gallery), Toronto; Roberts Gallery, Toronto; Claude Haeffely Gallery, Montreal; Galerie Connaître, Paris; Galerie l'Atelier, Quebec City; Damkjar-Burton Gallery, Hamilton; Galerie Michel Champagne, Quebec; Blue Barn Gallery, Ottawa; Downstairs Gallery, Edmonton; Galerie Les Deux "B", Saint Antoine sur Richelieu, Quebec; and Walter Klinkhoff Gallery, Montreal.

His works are in many private collections. They are also in numerous public collections. According to the Canadian Heritage Information Network* there are 117 Bellefleur works in museums across Canada. They include the Agnes Etherington Art Centre (Kingston, Ontario), the Art Gallery of Alberta (Edmonton), the Art Gallery of Hamilton (Ontario), the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (Halifax), the Mendel Art Gallery (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan), the Robert McLaughlin Gallery (Oshawa, Ontario), the McMichael Canadian Art Collection (Kleinburg, Ontario), the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art, the Ottawa Art Gallery (Ontario), the Museum of Quebec (Quebec City), Museum London (Ontario), the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (B.C.), and the National Gallery of Canada.

His numerous awards and honors include the Jessie Dow Prize* from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (1951), the (first) Prix Paul-Emile Borduas Award* (1977), Prix Louis-Philippe-Hebert * (1985), and an Honorary Doctorate from Concordia University. He also won Canada Council fellowships in 1958 and 1968.

As an important Canadian artist his work is illustrated and discussed in most recent books about Canadian art history and Canadian modern art. There is also the monograph "Bellefleur: The Fervour of the Quest" (1988), by Guy Robert (see AskART book references).


Footnotes:

(1) All artists, teachers, influences and associates mentioned in this biography have their own pages in AskART.
(2) The primary source for education dates is A Dictionary of Canadian Artists (1974), by Colin S. MacDonald (see AskART book references).
(3) The sources for exhibitions are the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art, the Art Gallery of Ontario (both have archived catalogues online) and Galerie Walter Klinkhoff, Montreal.
(4) Source: "Painting in Canada: A History" by J. Russell Harper (see AskART book references).

* For more in-depth information about these terms and others, see AskART.com Glossary http://www.askart.com/AskART/lists/Art_Definition.aspx.
Prepared and contributed to askART by M.D. Silverbrooke.