Le pot aux Roses – Gérard Tremblay

TREMBLAY, Gérard (1928-1992) 
“Le pot aux roses”  watercolour and ink on paper
Signed and dated on the lower right: G Tremblay 81
Titled on the lower left 30x24cm – 11,75×9,5″ 

Gérard Tremblay was a Quebec painter and engraver born in Les Éboulements, in the Charlevoix region.

​After graduating from the École des beaux-arts de Montréal in 1947, he attended the Institut des arts graphiques in 1950 and 1951, where he learned the fundamentals of engraving and printing from masters Albert Dumouchel and Arthur Gladu.

He held his first solo exhibition at Librairie Tranquille in 1947.
He won first prize at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ Spring Exhibition in 1951. In 1967, he received a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. From 1968 to 1982, he taught engraving, lithography, and art education at Université Laval in Quebec City.

Gérard Tremblay contributed to the development of printmaking in Quebec when he assumed,
for a three-year term, the presidency of the Association des graveurs du Québec from 1972.
A retrospective exhibition of his works was held at the Musée des beaux-arts de Mont-Saint-Hilaire in 2006,
two years after a retrospective of his works on paper at the Galerie Simon Blais in Montreal.

A versatile artist with great sensitivity, Gérard Tremblay skillfully explores various media such as oil,
ink, watercolor, pastel, and printmaking. A talented and prolific artist, his works are represented in major public and private collections across the country, including those of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (MNBAQ), the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the Vancouver Art Gallery, and Loto-Québec.

Throughout his career, he has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions both in Canada and abroad. His work, imbued with dreamlike imagery, lyricism, and exquisite humor, falls within the surrealist movement.

He is considered one of Quebec’s finest illustrators of literary books, particularly known for his collaborations with poets Roland Giguère, Claude Haeffely, and Robert Marteau. 

An accomplished craftsman and a poet at heart, Gérard Tremblay was for many years Roland Giguère’s
regular collaborator at Éditions Erta, with whom he shared both a deep friendship and a studio on Saint-Laurent Boulevard in Montreal.