PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from the Artist by a Private Collector, Quebec City, 1964
Galerie Jean-Pierre Valentin, Montreal
Sold sale of Fine Canadian Art, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, May 9, 2001, lot 339
Private Collection, Vancouver

LITERATURE
Guy Robert, Lemieux, 1975, page 102

After his return from France in 1955, Jean Paul Lemieux had a renewed fascination for his hometown of Quebec City and found a new way to portray it. Using a simplified visual language, he made his landscapes more minimal, tending towards the abstract. In Vue de Québec, looking north from the shore of Lévis, the city emerges from the St. Lawrence River. Bathed in a warm and gossamer light, buildings are sprinkled atop Cap Diamant in small white specks. The visible brush-strokes add texture to this ethereal piece. In the distance, the provincial capital seems suspended in time, and Lemieux’s hazy sfumato cloaks the stark landscape in a mysterious aura. Sky and water are almost indistinguishable, sharing the same colour palette of pastel pink, flaxen, robin’s egg blue and mint. Touches of different shades melt into each other in an almost impressionistic manner.

Lemieux’s work has been exhibited in retrospectives at major institutions such as the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec. He was honoured by the Canada Council Medal and became a Companion of the Order of Canada.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars