Shadow and Light - Arthur Guindon and His Work

MONTREAL, April 8, 2014 /CNW Telbec/ - The Marguerite Bourgeoys Museum is proud to announce that it will be presenting a new exhibition, Shadow and Light – Arthur Guindon and His Work, starting April 11. Guindon is a largely unknown early 20^th-century Canadian artist whose work depicted rich North American Native traditions and French-Canadian history and folklore. His poems, paintings and drawings made him a remarkable storyteller.

Although he spent most of his life in the city, Guindon never lost his childhood love of nature and the countryside. His canvases are filled with splendid Laurentian forest landscapes and bring to life such Iroquoian and Algonquian legends as Le Monstre chantant, Le Fléau des Géants and La Fiancée du Manitou. His masterpiece Le Génie du Lac des Deux-Montagnes was inspired by Algonquian folklore. Along with other artists of his day intent on asserting their French-Canadian identity, he depicted heroes and episodes from the history of New France.

Exhibition visitors will be able to enjoy an audioguide full of fascinating details about Guindon's work and the legends he recounted. The audioguide includes excerpts from Guindon's two literary masterpieces, En Mocassins and Aux temps héroïques.

Arthur Guindon, painter and poet
Guindon was born in 1864 in Saint-Polycarpe, a village southwest of Montreal. He excelled in his classical studies at the Collège de Montréal, taking time off on occasion to work in lumber camps (as the story goes), before deciding to enter the priesthood. He was ordained in 1895 after completing his theological studies at the Grand Séminaire de Montréal and then headed to Paris to finish his training and join the Society of Priests of Saint-Sulpice. A unique, self-taught artist, he recounted Native legends and episodes from the history of New France in words and images. He died in Montreal in 1923.

Information:
Shadow and Light – Arthur Guindon and His Work
Marguerite Bourgeoys Museum
400 Saint-Paul Est, Old Montreal  (Champ-de-Mars metro station)
Telephone: [phone] ext. 221 │www.marguerite-bourgeoys.com/guindon

SOURCE: Musée Marguerite-Bourgeoys

Valérie Lafleur, Communications Co-ordinator, Marguerite Bourgeoys Museum, Telephone: [phone] ext. 223, E-mail: [email protected]