This biography from the Archives of AskART:
| A native of Waterloo, Quebec, Canada, Robert Beaulieu is a pastel painter, basically self taught, who "paints the world as I see it." He is focused on disappearing aspects of the landscape such as junked cars, street scenes with old buildings as well as nautical scenes that reflect his many years at sea. "His paintings evoke a time when there was a shop around every corner, children played in the street after school, and the bleak expanse of the skyscraper was limited to big cities." One of his projects is a series of images of old Montreal, the "rural and metropolitan architecture, cars and various civil and industrial subjects."
He spent thirty years as a sailor, and in Europe when he got ashore studied the Old Masters in museums. Many of his paintings of ships have accuracy of detail and are "in the boardrooms of most of the major Canadian Great Lakes steamship companies."
Beaulieu refers to himself as a "documentary artist" while others might describe his work as "nostalgic realism". He is a determined realist and takes many photos and does extensive sketching in order to record accurately the details of the site he is depicting. He likes to work with pastels because he is color blind and has trouble mixing colors, which is necessary with oil paint. He works in his studio under fluorescent lights with the blinds drawn to keep the house cool. During the winter, he lives alone on a harbored ship that he maintains, calling it his "winter condo".
The artist is a founding member of the Pastel Society of eastern Canada and a member of the Pastel Society of America and the Pastel Society of Canada. He also gives numerous workshops around the Montreal area. In 1999, he and three other Canadians were named Master Pastelist of the World by International Pastel Magazine.
Source:
Caroline Purtell, 'Robert Beaulieu', "The Pastel Journal", December 2004
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