A couple of weeks ago, we went to the National Gallery in Ottawa. This place is a real gem. I have been to some of the best art museums in NA and Europe. And my experience at the National is always the best. Mainly because of the G of 7 collection. I love the impressionists but I feel a deeper connection to the Groups work.
The thing I find with spending a few hours looking at pictures is I tend to go back to the familiar time and again. And when I look, I am looking very closely - how did the artist create this contrast, how did he/she get this colour so luminous? I am looking inside the picture for technique. But I often get lost there and don't appreciate some of the work I am less familiar with.
On this trip I discovered Suzar Coté -
Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté (April 6, 1869 – January 29, 1937) was a Canadian painter and sculptor. He was born in Arthabaska, Quebec in 1869. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris with Léon Bonnat during the 1890s. After his return to Quebec in 1908, he produced many impressionist paintings of the Quebec landscape, as well as portraits, nudes, historical paintings and later sculptures.
Suzor-Coté became paralyzed in 1927 and later died at Daytona Beach, Florida in 1937.
The paintings in the National are spectacular and technically very good. I was lucky enough to buy a book of his work in the gallery on sale. It was a really good deal $20.00 for a $70.00 book. Filled with great reproductions of his work - pictures, sculpture and drawings - it will make a great edition to my collection of art books. I collect art books and mine are all well used and covered in smears of paint. I do often reference them as I paint.
If you are a fan of the true impressionists have a look at the work of Suzor Coté.
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