Background
Leduc was born in Montreal, Canada, on July 4, 1916.
2007
Fernand Leduc, left, received the Governor-General’s Award in visual and media arts.
405 Rue Sainte-Catherine Est, Montréal, QC H2L 2C4, Canada
Fernand Leduc started his studies at the School of Fine Arts in Montreal (today a part of the University of Quebec at Montreal) in 1938, graduating from it in 1943.
Fernand Leduc.
Fernand Leduc.
Fernand Leduc in his studio.
Fernand Leduc surrounded by his artworks.
Fernand Leduc with his artwork.
Leduc was born in Montreal, Canada, on July 4, 1916.
Fernand Leduc started his studies at the School of Fine Arts in Montreal (today a part of the University of Quebec at Montreal) in 1938, graduating from it in 1943.
Leduc played an important role in forming the group known as the Les Automatistes; he provided influential art criticism for the newspaper Le Quartier Latin. Leduc experimented at that time with various forms of "automatic writing," i.e. spontaneous and gestural nonfigurative painting.
Fernand Leduc was in charge in 1945 for making contact with André Breton, a French writer, in New York in order to make European surrealists more aware of the contribution of the Montréal group. Generally seen as the theoretician of the group, Leduc contributed an article to the publication of the Refus global in 1948 entitled "Qu'on le veuille ou non... ceci sera" ("Like it or not... This will be").
He moved to Paris with his wife in 1946 and deliberately distanced himself from the group. There he took part in an exhibit, called Automatisme, which was held at the Galerie du Luxembourg that examined the group. By the end of 1948, Leduc had joined the Plasticiens.
While in Paris, Fernand Leduc developed a friendship with the painter Jean Bazaine, who was at the time creating artworks which could be described as abstracted landscapes. This contact was an influence on Leduc's works of the early 1950s, mostly the works on paper executed on Île de Ré.
He left Paris in 1953. During the 1950s, he became more concerned with the concept of a "constructed order" and the role of geometry. With Paul-Émile Borduas, the theoretician of the Automatist group, Fernand Leduc was the one who maintained the closest ties with the French surrealists.
Leduc moved to a type of hard-edge abstraction in 1955, his works gradually becoming more involved with interactions and contrast of colours. In Montréal, the artist came to the defence of these more Plasticien-related theories on the occasion of the exhibition called Espace 55. The show caused a debate between Fernand Leduc and Paul-Émile Borduas, who disapproved the new directions taken by Montréal painting.
Leduc experimented with various forms of spontaneous and gestural nonfigurative painting, his art pieces gradually becoming more involved with interactions and contrast of colours. Fernand Leduc moved back to France in 1959 and resided there until 1970, when he came back to teach at Université Laval and the Université du Québec in Montréal until 1972. The artist developed the series called microchromies, a still ongoing exploration of the qualities of light as vibration and as a subtle creator of colour.
The Musée des beaux-arts de Chartres in collaboration with the Musée du Nouveau Monde de La Rochelle organized a retrospective exhibition of his oeuvre in 1985. After spending many years in Paris and Italy, Fernand Leduc returned to his native Montréal in 2006. That year, the Musée national des beaux-arts in Quebec City launched a major solo exhibition of his paintings. In spring 2007, the Musée national des beaux-arts dedicated a room in its permanent collection to Leduc.
Jaune
Triptyque ocre-violet-rouge
Passage érosion vermillion
Passage-érosion
Microchromie vert-terre
Microchromie 70, ZL violet d'Egypte
Strates solaires
Microchromie, gris puissance 6
Microchromie ZL, 70 Vert jade
Microchromie 71, ZL Fushia
Projet 1
Untitled (série Île de Ré)
Bistre-Basaner
Reflet
Rouge mitoyen
Vibrations sur fond vert
Gaze Etimine
Untitled
Untitled
Méandres
Fête à la mosquée
Chromatisme binaire violet cobalt
Composition
Bonne entente
Untitled
Composition
Yougo 13
Yougo 3
Two Works
Abstract composition
Untitled
Composition
Leduc became a member of the Contemporary Arts Society in 1943. In 1956 he became one of the founding members of the Non-Figurative Artists' Association of Montréal (Association des artistes non-figuratifs de Montréal).
Leduc was a modest and discreet person.
Quotes from others about the person
Pauline Marois: "Fernand Leduc was among those who helped usher Quebec into modernity. His oeuvre is testimony to the artistic explosion of the 20th century, as well as to a sensitive, original and authentic creative spirit."
Claude Gosselin: "He [Leduc] was one of our great oak trees. Imposing, upright, and with deep roots."
Claude Gosselin: "He [Leduc] never made any concessions in what he did as a painter, he was never held captive by the cliché of the moment."
Claude Gosselin: "Surrealism was about exploring the unconscious, the French surrealists like André Breton were inspired by [psychoanalyst Sigmund] Freud, but Fernand was drawn to a more personal form of expression, of individuality. That's what led him to non-representative forms, and ultimately to explore light, and how it interacts with colour."
Jocelyne Alloucherie: "I wasn't even really one of his students, but he [Fernand Leduc] seemed interested in what I was doing, and the conversations we had brought me incredible richness; his goal was to encourage artists to distill their personal expression, to strive for singularity. There was a real depth to his artistic reflections, and no discernible prejudice - certainly not toward a young, undisciplined artist, which is what I was... he allowed me to find my interior light."
Jocelyne Alloucherie: "A lot of art today is consciously spectacular, he [Fernand Leduc] wasn't interested in showmanship."
Fernand Leduc married Thérèse Renaud on May 27, 1947.