This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Simone Mary Bouchard (AKA: S. Mary Bouchard, AKA: Simone Marie
Bouchard) was a painter and hooked rug maker. She was born, lived
and died in Baie Saint-Paul, Quebec.
Her painting mediums were oil on silk and oil on paper. Her
subjects were genre, interiors, landscapes with figures, fantasy and
still life. She was self taught and painted in a Naïve style. Her
works were described by Maria Tippett (1) as displaying “ …
two-dimensionality, awkward perspective, non-rational juxtaposition of
intense colours, a dream-like quality and problematic draftsmanship.
Yet they admirably capture the village life of the habitant... ” Alfred
Pellan (see AskART) called her "Quebec's greatest primitive."
In 1936 she was discovered by anthropologist and folklorist Marius
Barbeau and, his then assistant, artist Joseph Jean Albert Palardy (see
AskART). They brought her to the attention of vacationing
American artists Maud and Patrick Morgan (see both in AskART), who
showed her work to a New York Gallery. (2)
Subsequently, she has been included in exhibitions in New York (1938);
at the Montreal Museum of Fine arts (1940 – 1945); with Paul Emile
Borduas, Alfred Pellan and John Lyman (see all in AskART)(1941); and at
the Addison Gallery (Andover, Massachusetts) in the “Aspects of
Contemporary Painting in Canada” (travelling) show (1942). She
also became a member of the Contemporary Art Society (1941) and
exhibited with them. Posthumously, the Dominion Gallery
(Montreal) has had exhibitions of her works in 1947 and 1952.
Her friends and acquaintances included Jean-Paul Lemieux, Jori Smith
and John Lyman (see all in AskART). Artists Marie Cecile Bouchard and
Edith Marie Bouchard (see both in AskART) are her younger sisters.
Her works are avidly collected. They are also in the Museum of
Quebec (Quebec City), the Canadian Museum of Civilization (Gatineau,
Quebec) and the Museum of Charlevoix, (La Malbaie, Quebec). Six of her
paintings are in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada
(Ottawa).
She is listed in “A Dictionary of Canadian Artists" (1974), by Colin S.
MacDonald; in "The Collector's Dictionary of Canadian Artists at
Auction" (2001), by Anthony R. Westbridge and Diana L. Bodnar; and in
“Art and Architecture in Canada” (1991), by Loren R. Lerner and Mary F.
Williamson.
Footnotes:
(1) Maria Tippett, By a Lady – Celebrating Three Centuries of Art by Canadian Women, Viking (1992), page 81.
(2) Lynda Jessup, Antimodernism and the Artistic Experience: Policing the Boundaries of Modernity, University of Toronto Press (2001), page112
Prepared and contributed by M.D. Silverbrooke |
| ** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at registrar@AskART.com. |
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