Sous-Bois Vert – Hugh John Barrett

Hugh John BARRETT (1935 – 2005)  – Aquarelle signée, mesurant 24×18 pouces et titrée Sous-Bois Vert

Hugh John Barrett was a Montreal born Quebec-Canadian painter, sculptor, graphic designer, and illustrator.

In 1950, he began his career as an apprentice mechanic at Canadair. Fate would have other plans. In the summer of 1951, young Hugh accompanied his brother Donald, a painter, who was sharing a house with Goodridge Roberts in the Laurentians.

In 1951, at the age of sixteen, he enrolled at the École du Meuble de Montréal. From 1951 to 1954, he studied successively at the École du Musée des Beaux-arts and the École des beaux-arts de Montréal, then at The Montréal School of Art and Design with Arthur Lismer and Goodridge Roberts.

From 1955 to 1956, he lived in Poste-de-la-Baleine, New Quebec, now Nunavik. During the summers, he hitchhiked along the North Shore and the Gaspé Peninsula.

In 1958 he married and moved back to the Montreal area. After studying engraving with Janine Leroux-Guillaume, he also attended evening classes in observational drawing at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and graduated in 1960 with a teaching certificate in pedagogy and artistic methodology from the École des beaux-arts de Montréal.

After painting and teaching in the Montreal area, he settled in Saguenay. He taught at the Quebec School of Fine Arts in the Arvida drawing section and in various school boards in the region. At the same time, he participated in the creations of several socio-cultural movements. In 1963-64, he organized visual arts classes in Chicoutimi and Arvida. He also founded a free workshop and an expression workshop for children.

In 1966, he returned to Montreal to teach. He established a creative workshop at the Laurentides Hospital. He was responsible for visual arts classes at Jean de Brébeuf College in Montreal.

In 1967, he participated as an illustrator of poems and short stories in the English-language literary magazine “Parallel.” He collaborated on the creation of a model representing the entire international exhibition grounds in Montreal.

From 1968 to 1970, Barrett was a teaching advisor for the McGill Art Society’s free visual arts workshop. He taught painting technique courses at the Cégep du Vieux Montréal.

1971-72: He taught at the cultural center and the Cégep in Jonquière, and he was a painting professor at the Triangle artistique in Chicoutimi.

From 1974 onwards, Barrett travelled extensively between Grande-Vallée in the Gaspé where he lived and his studio in Granby in the Eastern Townships. A dedicated life-long artist, Barrett has created important works which are found in private, corporate and public national and international collections including Le Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal.