Canadian Folk Art and Outsider Art
R. Legare. Sculptor. Wood carver. Ile-d’Orleans, Quebec. Active mid 20th century.
R. Legare. Maker of a pair of painted wood carvings. A Man and a Woman. About 15 inches high. Painted in glossy ‘as found’ colours. No other information is presently available for this artist. (An image is shown below.)*
*Image from the McCord Museum web-site.
Gilles Lecours. Sculptor. Wood carver. Victoriaville, Quebec. Active late 19th century.
Gilles Lecours was a bird carver. He carved and painted his impressions of the birds of Quebec. His bird carvings have wire legs and feet wrapped with thread. He usually signed his work on the dase or under the tail and occasionally the letters are nearly filled with colour and difficult to make out. But they are there if one looks carefully.
Some Carved birds by Gilles Lecours:
A Shorebird by Gilles Lecours:
Gilles Lecours. Carving of a Shorebird. c.1990.
Carving of a Wren by Gilles Lecours:
Gilles Lecours. Carving of a Wren. 1990’s.
A rare bird by Gilles Lecours:
Gilles Lecours. Carving of a Bird. 1990’s.
A Blue Bird by Gilles Lecours:
Blue Bird Gilles Lecours Sherbrooke PQ
Gilles Lecours. His mark:
Gilles Lecours. His mark.
Jean-Pierre Guay. Sculptor. Wood carver. Painter. Charny, Quebec. Active mid to late 20th century.
Jean Pierre Guay is a brilliant and multi-talented colorist, cabinet maker and artist. His sculptural subjects were birds, animals and occasionally weather vanes. His finishes were ‘as found’ colors and often were dense and glossy. Mr. Guay very rarely signed his carvings. He has more recently returned to his first love which was painting. He paints wild-life scenes that he signs and dates. Jean-Pierre Guay’s paintings can be found in galleries around Quebec.
A Rooster by Jean-Pierre Guay:
Jean-Pierre Guay. Rooster
Gerard Demers. Sculptor. Wood carver. Levis, Quebec. Active mid-20th century.
Gerard Demers was a primitive artist who worked with ‘as found’ materials and colours. He used them to make people. They were beautifully coloured, always well dressed, and full of expression. His work was rarely, if ever, signed and they were sold at local flea markets. His ‘people’ had great charm and have been collected widely; both privately and by museums.
Ref: Adrien Levasseur. Website. And: Sculpteurs en Art Populaire au Quebec,Editions GID, Quebec. 2012.
Alfred Desgagne. Sculptor. Wood carver. Ile-aux-Coudres, Quebec. Active mid-20th century.
Alfred Desgagne was a primitive wood carver. He made naive carvings of religious and historical figures – including a life-sized figure of Jacques Cartier – and also people at their every day lives. Most of these were made for display in his yard. He made furniture as well to his own design and models of windmills and a working sized outdoor bread oven. His work was rarely seen coloured or signed. Alfred Desgagnes was first mentioned in ‘Les Patenteux’.
Ref: Les Patenteux du Qubec. Louise de Grosbois, Raymonde Lamothe and Lise Nantel, Les Editions Parti Pris, Montreal, 1978.
Ref: Adrien Levasseur. Website. And: Sculpteurs en Art Populaire au Quebec,Editions GID, Quebec. 2012.
Ref: Jean Simard, Pour Passer Le Temps: Artistes Populaires Du Quebec, Gouvernement du Quebec, Ministere des Affaires Culturelles.1985.
Ref: Blake McKendry, An Illustrated Companion to Canadian Folk Art (1999).
