{{Short description|Canadian artist}} {{Infobox artist | name = Marcel Barbeau | image = Marcel-Barbeau atelier 2001.jpg | caption = Marcel Barbeau at his atelier in Estrie, Sutton, Quebec in 2001 | image_size = 200px | birth_name = Christian Marcel Barbeau | birth_date = {{birth date|1925|02|18}} | birth_place = Montreal, Quebec, Canada | death_date = {{death date and age|2016|01|02|1925|02|18}} | death_place = Montreal, Quebec, Canada | nationality = | spouse = {{plainlist| * {{marriage|{{ill|Suzanne Meloche|fr|Suzanne Meloche}}|1948}} * {{marriage|Ninon Gauthier|1975}} }} | field = Multidisiplinary artist | training = | movement = | works = }} '''Marcel Barbeau''', {{Post-nominals|country=CAN|OC|OQ|RCA|size=100%}} (February 18, 1925 – January 2, 2016) was a Canadian painter, sculptor, and graphic and performance artist who used different forms of abstraction and art techniques and technology to express himself.<ref name="ledevoir " >{{cite web | url=https://www.ledevoir.com/culture/actualites-culturelles/459201/marcel-barbeau-s-eteint-a-l-age-de-90-ans | title=Marcel Barbeau s'éteint à l'âge de 90 ans | publisher=Le Devoir | date=2 January 2016 | accessdate=2 January 2016 | language=fr}}</ref>
==Career== Born in Montreal, he studied with Paul-Émile Borduas at l'École du Meuble in Montreal and later shared a studio with classmate Jean-Paul Riopelle.<ref name="macDonald " /> At the Ecole Barbeau associated with other students of Borduas. Together, they formed a group which became known as the Automatistes. Barbeau, like the others, was specially interested in psychoanalysis and the use of the unconscious and this interest influenced his work from 1946 to 1957. With them, he signed the Refus Global in 1948<ref name="macDonald " >A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, volumes 1-8 by Colin S. MacDonald, and volume 9 (online only), by Anne Newlands and Judith Parker National Gallery of Canada / Musée des beaux-arts du Canada</ref> because he and the other signatories wanted to be free of formal structures - a movement which extended far beyond painting.<ref name="macDonald " />
When Riopelle and Borduas left Montreal for Paris and New York respectively and the other signatories formed the Plasticians, he began to investigate his own form of abstraction. He exhibited small ink non-objective paintings in NYC (1952) and also exhibited in Montreal, Ottawa and Quebec City.<ref name="macDonald " /> In 1957 he returned to drawing from live models and experimented with calligraphy, then focused on drawing and collage which continued to be his main interest until 1961.<ref name="macDonald " /> From 1964 to 1968 he researched Op Art and film techniques. He lived in Paris from 1962-1964 where he next exhibited his work. He then moved to NYC where he lived and worked for the next four years (1964-1968), exhibiting his work and in Montreal showing his work at Galerie du Siècle while taking part in group shows in both cities. In 1969, the Winnipeg Art Gallery in collaboration with the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, held a retrospective exhibition of his work.<ref name="macDonald " />
As a painter and sculptor, Barbeau addressed most of the fields in the visual arts. As a multidisciplinary artist, he tried to change the plastic language by transgressing disciplinary boundaries.<ref name="gauthier " /> His collages became paintings (1959-1963 and 1986-2005), art prints (1969) and sculptures (1984-1988). His drawings of poems, made of words and letters, sometimes have borrowed their medium and relief from painting (1957).<ref name="gauthier " /> His sculptures resemble drawings thrown in space (1971-1977) or look like small shelters, almost architectural (1985-1992). His performances, real stagings of the act of creation, materialized through paintings, drawings and, under his directive with the complicity of photographers or film directors, through photographs, films and videos, giving some permanence to otherwise ephemeral artistic gestures (1972-1980).<ref name="gauthier " />
Curiosity led Barbeau to study the main contemporary artistic trends originating from other disciplinary fields. His interest in those art forms encouraged him to draw on their structures in order to find some convergences, connivances, anchor points or to confirm aesthetic intuitions.<ref name="gauthier " /> He used poetry, music, dance and architecture to renew his art, as for example, his phonic calligraphies (1957-1960) inspired by his friend Claude Gauvreau's poetry or his interdisciplinary events from the seventies and the eighties.<ref name="gauthier " /> He even created works that fall under these disciplines such as his phonic chants from the mid-eighties, which appear in the portrait film by Manon Barbeau entitled "Barbeau, Libre comme l'art"; his dance-action paintings from the seventies; the choreography he created for the opening dance part of his exhibit at Domaine Cataraqui (1999).<ref name="gauthier " /> Despite its diversity and profusion, his work reveals a unity. Economy of means and aesthetic perfection was of great concern for him.<ref name="gauthier " >Ninon Gauthier, ''Marcel Barbeau : Then and now'', 2013.</ref>
In 2010, Barbeau said in an interview about his work:<blockquote>"When I paint I never look for an emotion. But the forms in the painting will get together and nearly make love; the forms want to live together."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Enright |first1=Robert |title=Marcel Barbeau: The Colour of Change |url=https://bordercrossingsmag.com/article/marcel-barbeau-the-colour-of-change |website=bordercrossingsmag.com |publisher=BORDERCROSSINGS magazine, 2010 |access-date=4 August 2022}}</ref> </blockquote>
== Public collections == Barbeau is represented in well over fifty public and corporate collections including the National Gallery of Canada;<ref>{{cite web |title=Collection |url=https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artist/marcel-barbeau |website=www.gallery.ca |publisher=National Gallery of Canada |access-date=4 August 2022}}</ref> the Art Gallery of Ontario; and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.<ref name="macDonald " /><ref>{{cite web |title=Marcel Barbeau |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/marcel-barbeau |website=www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca |publisher=Canadian Encyclopedia |access-date=4 August 2022}}</ref>
== Honours == * 1972 Canada Council’s Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award<ref>{{cite web |title=Prizes |url= https://canadacouncil.ca/funding/prizes/victor-martyn-lynch-staunton-awards|publisher=Canada Council |access-date=15 August 2022}}</ref> * 1995 Officer of the Order of Canada<ref name="gg " /> * 1998 Barbeau`s work is used as a stamp by Canada Post as a part of the collection on the Automatistes<ref>{{cite web |title=Marcel Barbeau |url=https://postagestampguide.com/canada/series/1480/the-automatistes |website=/postagestampguide.com |publisher=Canada Post |access-date=4 August 2022}}</ref> * 2003 member, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts<ref name="ledevoir " /> * 2013 Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts<ref name="gg " >{{cite web |title=Marcel Barbeau |url=https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artist/marcel-barbeau |website=www.gallery.ca |publisher=National Gallery of Canada |access-date=4 August 2022}}</ref> * 2013 Paul-Émile Borduas Award, prix du Québec<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://prixduquebec.gouv.qc.ca/recipiendaires/marcel-barbeau/|title=Marcel Barbeau|date=November 11, 2013|website=www.prixduquebec.gouv.qc.ca}}</ref> * 2015 Ordre National of Québec<ref>{{cite web |title=Marcel Barbeau |url=https://www-ordre--national-gouv-qc-ca.translate.goog/membres/membre.asp?id=3184&_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc |website=/www-ordre--national-gouv-qc-ca.translate.goog/membres |publisher=Government of Quebec |access-date=4 August 2022}}</ref>
== Legacy == Barbeau`s fonds is available at the Archives de l'UQAM - Fonds Marcel Barbeau (University of Quebec Archives), Montreal, QC<ref>{{cite web |title=Marcel Barbeau |url=https://acdps.uqam.accesstomemory.org/110p |website=acdps.uqam.accesstomemory.org |publisher=UQAM |access-date=4 August 2022}}</ref> and the Archives nationale du Québec- Archives de l’audio visuel (Quebec National Archives, audio-visual Archives), Quebec City, QC<ref>{{cite web |title=Marcel Barbeau |publisher=National Archives of Quebec|url=https://marcelbarbeau.com/bibliographie/archives-des-pieces-photographiques-et-audio-visuelles |website=marcelbarbeau.com/bibliographie |access-date=4 August 2022}}</ref>
== References == {{reflist}}
== Bibliography == * {{cite book |last1=Gagnon|first1=Carolle|last2=Gauthier |first2=Ninon |title=Marcel Barbeau: Le Regard en Fugue/Marcel Barbeau: Fugato |date=1990 |publisher=CECA Inc. |location=Montreal|url=http://library.gallery.ca/search~S1?/agagnon%2C+carolle/agagnon+carolle/1%2C1%2C4%2CB/frameset&FF=agagnon+carolle+1947&1%2C%2C4 |access-date=3 August 2022}}
== External links == * {{Commons category-inline}} * {{Official|http://www.marcelbarbeau.com/}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Barbeau, Marcel}} Category:1925 births Category:2016 deaths Category:Artists from Montreal Marcel Barbeau Category:Canadian painters Category:Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts winners Category:Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Category:Officers of the Order of Canada Category:Officers of the National Order of Quebec Category:Sculptors from Quebec Category:Canadian abstract artists Category:20th-century Canadian artists Category:21st-century Canadian artists