Lise Gervais, self-portrait
BIOGRAPHY
Born in Saint-Césaire, Rouville, Quebec, Lise Gervais studied painting at the École des beaux-arts in Montreal under Stanley Cosgrove and Jacques de Tonnancour, drawing under Jean Simard, Gabriel Marcotte and Suzanne Duquetand sculpture under Louis Archambault.
She travelled to Europe in 1958 where she visited Spain and viewed particularly the drawings and paintings of Goya.
Viewing her paintings in 1964 the critic Dorothy Pfeiffer commented “ Colourful, stencil-like, paintings climb like exotic vines, or else soar like flights of birds of paradise. Everything moves, flies, rises, or flaps loudly in Gervais’ paintings. But nothing - absolutely nothing - flutters. In fact, the dominent note in her technique is ‘power,’ a power both authoritative and invigorating.” She spent much of her time in the solitude of the woods and lakes in the Laurentians.
SUBJECT
“ (…) in spite of the amount in pounds of paint laid on her canvases, Lise Gervais manages to suggest dimensions of space, depth, transparency, texture, and movement which are remarkable ”. Dorothy Pfeiffer, 1964.
TECHNIQUE/MEDIUM
Lise Gervais makes paintings and sculptures.
EXHIBITION
After a number of group shows in Quebec, Montreal, Trois-Rivières, Chicoutimi, Granby, Sherbrooke and Ottawa, Gervais held her first solo show in Montreal, in February of 1961. She exhibited there again in 1962 and in Toronto at the Moos Gallery also in 1962. An exhibit of her abstract sculpture took place in 1967.
Galerie Denyse Delrue, Montreal; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Galerie Moos, Toronto; Philadelphia Museum, USA
Galerie du Siècle, Montreal; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (Musée du Québec), Quebec; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Galerie de Montréal; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; Rodin Museum, Paris
Bishop’s University Art Gallery, Lennoxville, Quebec
Galerie d’art du Collège Édouard-Montpetit, Longueuil, Quebec
McIntosh Gallery, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario
COLLECTIONS
Her works are in the collections of Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, Minister of External Affairs (Canada), Queen’s University (Kingston) and in many private collections.
National Gallery of Canada
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Musée d’art Contemporain de Montréal
Albright-Knox Museum, Buffalo, NY, USA
Musée d’art de Joliette, Québec
Université de Montréal
Concordia University, Montreal
Queens University, Kingston
Hart House, University of Toronto
York University, Toronto
Samuel Bronfman Collection, Montreal
Charles Delloye Collection, Paris
Samuel Zacks Collection, Toronto
CBC Head Office, Montreal
Source: Colin S. Macdonald, A dictionary of Canadian artists. Volume 2, Canadian paperbacks, 3rd edition, 1977, p. 270.
