Alfred Pellan (Alfred Pelland)
1906-1988
Alfred Pellan was born in Quebec City. His mother passed away when he was very young leaving his father to raise three children. When he was in school, he was constantly sketching on the margins of his copy book and did extremely well in his art class, but not so well in his other subjects. When Pellan was fourteen, he entered the École des Beaux-Arts de Québec. He was an extremely serious student and the school was very much impressed by his hard work. They eventually gave him a key to the school’s studios so he could pursue his studies at any time. Pellan studied there for five years and won many prizes. He excelled such that in 1922, at the age of sixteen, the National Gallery of Canada acquired one of his canvases at the Spring Exhibition in Montreal. In his last year, he won every prize awarded for painting, drawing, sculpture, sketching, advertising and anatomy. In 1926, he received the greatest reward when the Quebec Government gave him a painting bursary to study in Paris. He left Canada and arrived in Paris in autumn of 1926.
In Paris, Pellan studied at the École Supérieure Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Paris. He also studied at Académie Colarossi and Académie de la Grande Chaumière, and at the studio of Lucien Simon who was then considered the best teacher of painting available. In 1928, Pellan won the first prize in painting at École des Beaux-Arts de Paris and an exhibition of his work was held at École des Beaux-Arts de Quebec. In Paris, Pellan spent most of his time in the Montparnasse area, where he was slowly drawn into the mainstream of contemporary art. Over the next few years, he exhibited at group exhibitions, notably at the École des Beaux-Arts and at the Salon d’automne in Paris, but it was in 1935 that he attracted much attention when he won first prize at the Salon de l’Art Mural de Paris, where Fernand Léger and Pablo Picasso also exhibited, making Pellan’s achievement even more impressive. That same year he had his first one-man show at Académie Ranson.
During his stay in France, Pellan did not sell many works, and relied mainly on financial assistance from his father and commissions for graphic design. For a short while he dabbled in industrial and textile design, at one point creating a perfume bottle for Revillon, and later fabric designs for dresses designed by Schiaparelli. In 1936, Pellan made a short trip back to Canada when he applied to a teaching post at École des Beaux-Arts de Quebec. He was then required to prove his abilities regardless of his success in Paris. The works were judged by two of the artists that had judged him for his government bursary, Clarence A. Gagnon and Horatio Walker. He was later interviewed by the Secretary of the Province and was finally judged to be too modern and avant-garde towards art, therefore a bad influence on students. Pellan went back to Paris where his work was better received.
In 1937, Pellan was unexpectedly surprised when the Minister of Fine Arts of France and the curator of the Musée de Fontainebleau visited him and purchased two paintings, which now hang in the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris and the Musée de Grenoble. By 1939, Pellan was recognized as one of the important painters of the French School which included Dufy, Dali, Fautrier and Picasso, all of whom participated at the 1939 show Paris Painters of Today at the Museum of Modern Art in Washington. He also joined the ranks at Jeanne Bucher’s gallery whose other artists included Braque, Ernst, Kandinsky, Léger, Lurçat, Marcoussis, Picasso, Arp, Giacometti and Lipchitz.
When World War II arrived, Pellan was forced to come back to Canada. He shipped over 400 paintings and drawings home and came back on a trip paid by the Quebec Government who took several of his paintings as payment. He arrived in Quebec in June of 1940 and only a few days after his arrival, an exhibition was held with 161 works at the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Quebec. That same exhibition was then shown at the Art Association of Montreal. He decided to move to Montreal, and stopped at Philip Surrey’s place for a few weeks until he found something of his own. In Montreal, Pellan widened his circle of colleagues through Philip Surrey and met Jori Smith, Jean Palardy, John Lyman, Jacques de Tonnancour, Goodridge Roberts and others. He also felt very attracted by the group of artists connected with Paul-Émile Borduas at the École du Meuble.
In 1941, Pellan participated at the Première Exposition des Indépendants in Quebec City along with John Lyman, Goodridge Roberts, Philip Surrey, Eric Goldberg, Louise Gadbois, Louis Muhlstock, Paul-Émile Borduas, Jori Smith and Stanley Cosgrove. He also took part at the annual exhibition of the Contemporary Art Society of Montreal that same year. He then spent that summer as a guest of Jori Smith and her husband Jean Palardy in the Charlevoix region. There he painted many landscapes and portraits that he exhibited at his studio the following December. In 1942, Pellan held a one-man exhibition in New-York, he participated at many group exhibitions and also realised two murals for the Canadian Legation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
In 1943, Pellan was hired as art teacher at the École des Beaux-Arts de Montréal. His objections to the restrictive, academic philosophy of its director, Charles Maillard, resulted in Maillard’s resignation in 1945 and a more liberal atmosphere there. During the next years, Pellan kept teaching while exhibiting abroad at many different venues. He participated at the Pan-American exhibition at the Andover Museum in 1942; his paintings were part of an exhibition of Canadian painting in Rio de Janeiro and at the Yale University Art Gallery in 1943; he participated at a group exhibition at the Province of Quebec pavilion in New York in 1945; that same year, he officially represented Canada at the Art Institute of Chicago at an exhibition grouping artists from some forty countries; in 1946, he was the first ever Canadian to exhibit his work at the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris at an exhibition presented by Unesco. During this period, Pellan also got involved in theatre, creating costumes, sets, accessories and make-up for various plays.
In 1948, refusing to be affiliated with the Automatiste movement, Pellan formed Prisme d’Yeux with a group of artists which included Léon Bellefleur, Jacques de Tonnancour, Albert Dumouchel, Jeanne Rhéaume and Goodridge Roberts. In February, they published their manifesto, written by Jacques de Tonnancour, calling for an art free of restrictive ideology. They held their first official exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and at the Salon de peinture of the École Technique de Trois-Rivières. Prisme d’Yeux was a loose knit group and did not last very long. After an aborted second show and being overshadowed by the immense reaction created by the Refus Global manifesto, Prisme d’Yeux ended only a few months after its creation and the artists went on pursuing their careers separately. Nonetheless, that year Pellan went on to win first prize for painting at the 65th Annual Spring Exhibition of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and first prize in the Concours artistiques de la province de Québec.
Over the course of the next three years, Pellan kept teaching, exhibiting and he married a young woman, Madeleine Polisena, who attended the École des Beaux-Arts de Montréal. In 1952, after nine years of teaching, Pellan left his post as an art teacher at the Beaux-Arts. He then participated in many group exhibitions including the International Exhibition of the XVI Biennale in Venice, the Festival of Montreal at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the 11th Mostra Internationale di Bianco e Negro in Lugano, Switzerland, and two other shows in Toronto. Later that year, he was awarded a Royal Society of Canada fellowship for research studies in France, enabling him to stay in Paris until 1955. During this stay, he exhibited at the National Gallery of Canada and at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and also took part in the Art for Israel exhibition at the Bezalel Museum in Jerusalem. In 1954 he held a one-man show at the Coq Liban where his work was highly praised but his most memorable event was his retrospective show at the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris in 1955, where 181 works were shown and the sale of a large work was made to the museum. Following the retrospective, Pellan came back to Canada to the Ste. Rose studio he had bought in 1950. Soon after he came back, the mayor Jean Drapeau organized at retrospective in the hall of Honour of the Montreal City Hall in 1956.
For the next thirty years, Pellan exhibited at many different shows. His group exhibition included: Museum London (1956, 1963, 1968); National Gallery of Canada (1956, 1957, 1959, 1965, 1967, 1968, 1982); Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (1957, 1966, 1975, 1978, 1981); Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels (1958); Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes in Mexico (1958); Vancouver Art Gallery (1958); Dallas Museum of Contemporary Art (1958); University of Manitoba (1959); Winnipeg Art Gallery (1959, 1967, 1979); Museum of Modern Art in New York (1963); Musée Galliera in Paris (1963), Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleta, Italy (1963); Tate Gallery in London, England (1964); Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal (1964, 1967, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980); Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec (1967, 1968); Canadian pavilion at Expo 67 (1967); Canadian pavilion at the Osaka World Fair (1970); Art Gallery of Ontario (1975, 1978); Agnes Etherigton Art Centre (1978); Edmonton Art Gallery (1978, 1980); Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris (1980) and many others.
During these years, Pellan also held many one-man shows in several private galleries in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Kitchener, Sherbrooke, Paris, Quebec City and Hamilton. Retrospectives of his work were held at: National Gallery of Canada (1960-1961, 1972-1973, 1980-1981); Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (1960-1961, 1972-1973); Art Gallery of Toronto (1960-1961); Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec (1960-1961, 1972-1973); Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery (1964); Howard Domain, Sherbrooke (1964); Winnipeg Art Gallery (1968); Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal (1969); Université Laval in Quebec City (1970).
Aside from his painting career, Pellan participated in many different theatre projects including a curtain design maquette for the Montreal Theatre Ballet (1957) and the design of costumes, props, sets and make-up for a Shakespeare play at the Place des Arts in Montreal (1968-1969). From 1957, Pellan created many Murals including: City Centre Building in Montreal (1957); École Saint-Patrice, Granby (1957); École secondaire Immaculée-Conception, Granby (1960); three murals for the Miron brothers (1962); Winnipeg Airport (1963); Place des Arts, Montreal (1963); Saint-Théophile de Laval-Ouest church (1964); National Library of Canada, Ottawa (1968) and others.
During his career, Pellan had a constant flow of awards given to him, among which: first prize, mural contest, City Centre Building, Montreal (1956); Special Bursary from the Canadian Arts Council (1958); National Painting Prize, University of Alberta (1958); Medal from the Canadian Arts Council (1965); Member of the jury at 4ième Biennale de Paris (1965); member of the Order of Canada (1967); Centenary Confederation Medal (1967); honorary doctorate, University of Ottawa (1969); Associate of the Royal Canadian Academy (1971); honorary doctorate, Université Laval, Quebec City (1971); honorary doctorate, Concordia University (1971); Louis-Philippe Hébert Prize from the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste (1972); Molson prize, Canadian Arts Council (1972); member of the Royal Canadian Academy (1973); Honorary doctorate, Université de Montréal (1974) and others.
In the last ten years of his life, Pellan battled leukemia. During this time, he produced only five paintings up until his death in Montreal at the age of 82. Following his death, retrospective shows were held at the Musée d’art Contemporain de Montréal and the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec in 1993. Later, other shows were held at the Musée d’Art Contemporain des Laurentides in 2005, the Maison des Arts de Laval in 2006 and a retrospective show at the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec in 2008.
Collections:
- National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa, ON)
- Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Montreal, QC)
- Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal (Montreal, QC)
- Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec (Quebec City, QC)
- McMichael Canadian Art Collection (Kleinburg, ON)
- Musée de Grenoble (Grenoble, France)
- Musée d’Art Moderne (Paris, France)
- Wellesley College Museum (Philadelphia, USA)
- Musée d’Art Contemporain des Laurentides (St. Jérôme, QC)
- Musée des Beaux-Arts de Sherbrooke (Sherbrooke, QC)
- Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery (Owen Sound, ON)
- Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, ON)
- Art Gallery of Edmonton (Edmonton, AB)
- Art Gallery of Winnipeg (Winnipeg, MN)
- Art Gallery of Hamilton (Hamilton, ON)
- Art Gallery of Windsor (Windsor, ON)
- Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (Halifax, NS)
- Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (Victoria, BC)
- Vancouver Art Gallery (Vancouver, BC)
- Mackenzie Art Gallery (Regina, SK)
- Musée du Bas St-Laurent (Rivière-du-Loup, QC)
- Musée Régional de la Côte-Nord (Sept-Îles, QC)
- Museum London (London, ON)
- Agnes Etherington Art Centre (Kingston, ON)
- The Robert McLaughlin Gallery (Oshawa, ON)
- Dalhousie Art Gallery (Halifax, NS)
- Simon Frasier Gallery (Burnaby, BC)
- Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery (Kitchener, ON)
- Beaverbrook Art Gallery (Fredericton, NB)
- Musée d’Art de Joliette (Joliette, QC)
- Musée Régional de Rimouski (Rimouski, QC)
- Musée Laurier (Montreal, QC)
- Musée de la Civilisation (Quebec City, QC)
- Musée Louis-Hémon (Péribonka, QC)
- Musée des Hospitalière de l’Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal (Montreal, QC)
- Concordia University (Montreal, QC)
- Université de Montréal (Montreal, QC)
- Galerie de l’UQAM (Montreal, QC)
- Musée des Maîtres et Artisans du Québec (St. Laurent, QC)
- La Pulperie de Chicoutimi (Chicoutimi, QC)
- Musée Pierre Boucher (Trois-Rivières, QC)
- Bata Shoe Museum Foundation (Toronto, ON)
- Canadian Arts Council (Ottawa, ON)
- Power Corporation of Canada (Montreal, QC)
- Firestone Art Collection (Ottawa, ON)
Affiliations:
- Contemporary Art Society
- Prysme d’Yeux (1948)
- Associate of the Royal Canadian Academy (1971)
- Royal Canadian Academy (1973)
- Order of Canada (1967)
