signed & dated lower left; titled verso
Provenance: Marlborough Godard, Toronto ON/Montreal QC; Paul Kuhn Fine Arts, Calgary AB
Exhibited: “Jean McEwen”, Saskatoon Gallery & Conservatory Corporation, Saskatoon SK, August 29 -September 23, 1979 (No. L79-223-10)
Jean McEwen was born in Montreal to a Scottish father and French Canadian mother. He was essentially self-taught, driven by a strong interest in art and poetry. While completing his Pharmacy Degree at the University of Montreal, he simultaneously painted and became a published poet. In 1949, his submission to the 66th annual Spring Salon at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts was well-received. At this time, McEwen struck up what would become an enduring friendship with Paul-Emile Borduas. His contact with Borduas, and visits to his home, led McEwen on a path towards artistic experimentation. In 1951 McEwen held his first one-man show at Galerie Agnes Lefort. He was subsequently encouraged to travel to Paris, where Borduas put him in touch with Jean-Paul Riopelle. McEwen spent the following two years years in France and Spain, touring museums, painting, exhibiting, and making connections within the artistic community. The Paris years were impactful, and by the time the artist returned to Montreal in 1953, his work had been transformed.
McEwen drew influence from the spontaneity of the Automatistes, from the French schools of Impressionism and Lyrical Abstraction, and from the non-figural abstraction that characterized the work of the American Expressionists of the time. McEwen’s work, however, remained distinct from any of these schools. His was a more deliberate exploration of colour, light and gesture, skillfully layering opaque and translucent paint into sensuous constructions.
McEwen was able to dedicate himself entirely to painting in 1973, when he finally retired from the pharmaceutical industry. In 1977, he received the Victor Lynch-Staunton award (for distinguished artistic contribution in Canada). This enabled him to work in Paris once again, from September 1977 to June 1978. It was during this second sojourn in Paris that this work, from the Suite Parisienne, was painted. The Suite was exhibited at the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris during the summer of 1978, then again upon McEwen’s return to Canada, at the Mira Godard Gallery, in March of 1979.
Jean McEwen exhibited extensively, both in Canada and internationally, during his career; his work is represented in numerous public collections. A major retrospective of Jean McEwen’s art was held in 1987 at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
