Clarence Gagnon

Clarence Alphonse Gagnon, LL. D. was a French Canadian painter, draughtsman, engraver and illustrator. He is known for his landscape paintings of the Laurentians and the Charlevoix region of eastern Quebec.

In 1907, Gagnon returned to Canada, and settled in the Baie-Saint-Paul region of Charlevoix. In 1913, his career hit a turning point, with the first and only major solo exhibition of his work, mostly winter landscapes from Quebec, at the Galerie A. M. Reitlinger in Paris, Clarence A. Gagnon. Paysage d'hiver dans les montagnes des Laurentides au Canada (1913). This exhibition, the first for a living Canadian artist in Paris, marked him as a painter with his own interpretation of the Canadian winter and also as a painter known for his views of habitant life.

Gagnon lived in France from 1917 to 1919, then returned to Canada, to Baie St. Paul, Quebec. From 1919 to 1924, Gagnon took advantage of the newly accessible area, thanks in part to the recently constructed rail line connecting Montreal and Quebec City to Baie St. Paul, and produced sketches, paintings and print works of the area. During this time, A.Y. Jackson, Albert Henry Robinson, Edwin Holgate, Mabel May and Lilias Torreance joined him at various times to join in sketching trips across the region.

In 1924, Gagnon returned to France. Later he travelled to Venice, Rouen, Saint-Malo and Scandinavia to paint landscape. In 1925 and 1926, he provided original designs for the Christmas cards of the Canadian Artists Series published by Rous and Mann Limited of Toronto. He was also an illustrator and illustrated Louis-Frédéric Rouquette's Le Grand silence blanc in 1929 and in 1933, Maria Chapdelaine by Louis Hémon.

He returned permanently to Canada in 1936, returning to his native Montreal, where he died on January 5, 1942, at the Royal Victoria Hospital. He is buried at the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery in Montreal. A bust has been erected in his memory by the Galerie Clarence Gagnon in Quebec City.

Text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2023