10 Facts About Fernand Leduc

Fernand Leduc was a Canadian abstract expressionist painter and a major figure in the Quebec contemporary art scene in the 1940s and 1950s.

In 1938 Fernand Leduc started his studies at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Montreal.

Fernand Leduc played a major role in forming the group known as the Les Automatistes, co-signing the Refus Global manifesto, but not contributing to the illustrated book.

Fernand Leduc moved to Paris with his wife Therese Renaud in 1946 and slowly distanced himself from the group.

In Paris, Fernand Leduc developed a friendship with the painter Jean Bazaine, who was at the time producing works which could be described as abstracted landscapes.

Fernand Leduc moved to a type of hard-edge abstraction in 1955.

Fernand Leduc helped found The Non-Figurative Artists' Association of Montreal in 1956 and was its first President.

Fernand Leduc experimented at that time with various forms of spontaneous and gestural nonfigurative painting, his works gradually becoming more involved with interactions and contrast of colours.

Fernand Leduc returned to France in 1959 and stayed there until 1970, when he came back for two years to teach in Montreal.

Fernand Leduc died of cancer in Montreal on January 28,2014.