Background
Guido Molinari was born on October 12, 1933, in Montreal, Quebec to Italian heritage with his parents from Cune (Borgo a Mozzano, Tuscany) and Naples, Campania.
Guido Molinari was born on October 12, 1933, in Montreal, Quebec to Italian heritage with his parents from Cune (Borgo a Mozzano, Tuscany) and Naples, Campania.
Guido began painting at age 13, and his existentialist approach to art was formed during a bout with tuberculosis at age 16, during which he read Nietzsche, Sartre, Piaget, and Camus. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts de Montréal and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
Guido practised abstraction in New York, inspired by Barnett Newman, and Jackson Pollock, then returned to Montreal where he produced some of the finest pieces of his career. He taught for 27 years at Sir George Williams University and Concordia University, and retired in 1997.
Molinari quickly became one of the leaders of the Montreal Plasticien movement. His canvases from the 1950s represent a seminal moment in the history of abstract painting in Quebec, during which he established the bases of his analytical approach of the treatment of colour and defined himself following an attentive study of the pictorial structures used by Mondrian and Malevich. As well as insisting on simplification of the means and uncluttered surfaces, the painter resolved the problems of reversibility of the pictorial space by establishing a dynamic visual rhythm.
A prolific artist, over the course of his career Guido Molinari created a singular pictorial language that arises from a concept of painting motivated above all by a keen interest in visual effect and the relationship between these elements. With Untitled, a fine example of the artist’s research and the evolution of abstract art during the 1950s, the Museum’s collection represents the beginnings of hard-edge painting in Quebec. He died on February 21, 2004 in Montreal.
His work is known for its focus on modular and contrasting colours, shapes, and lines. It is exhibited worldwide, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, and the Guggenheim Museum and Museum of Modern Art in New York.
He won a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1967, was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1971, and won the Prix Paul-Émile-Borduas in 1980.
In 2004, Concordia recognized him with a posthumous honorary doctorate.
A Next... Amitie
Black/White
Mutation Mathematique Vert-Ocre
Mutation rythmique bi-jaune
Mutation serielle verte-rouge
Opposition triangulaire
Orange-Blue Space
Quadriblanc
Quantificateur
Red Rouge Quantifier
Roma
Sculptures created for R.M. Schafer's Seventh String Quartet
Seriel bleu-ocre
Structure
Structure triangulaire gris-brun
Untitled
Untitled
Untitled
Untitled
Untitled (October 1962)
Quotations:
"I choose color on the spur of the moment. People ask me why I paint in red. I do not have the slightest idea. I was painting in blue, then I had a need to paint in red. To be able to interact with the medium, this is the key. There are no sure ways to do art."
"Just as with the quartet, each part of a painting is telling a different story."
"The question of painting is bound up with epistemology, with the engagement of the viewer, with what the viewer may learn."
"I'm interested in the movement of the eyes across the painting."
"It's impossible to just localize your perceptions - because the stimuli come from both eyes."
He was a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.
Guido married Fernande Saint-Martin in 1958.
