a great quebecois artist past away
Bidoux
Artist used form, colour
Montreal painter, teacher Guido Molinari dies at 70
ALAN HUSTAK
The Gazette
Sunday, February 22, 2004
"There is no such thing as colour. There are only colour harmonies,"
said Guido Molinari, shown at one of his retrospectives in 1995.
CREDIT: TEDD CHURCH, THE GAZETTE
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Guido Molinari, an inventive abstract painter who was a dominant figure
in Canadian art for more than five decades, died of complications from
pneumonia early yesterday at Montreal's Notre Dame Hospital.
Once hailed by influential art critic John Bentley Mays as "the maker of
some of the most majestic and intellectually commanding canvases in the
history of Canadian art," Molinari taught at Concordia University for 27
years until he retired in 1997.
"He was an extraordinary artist and a very generous man. He enjoyed
teaching and talking about art, and the construction of art just for the
pleasure of it," Montreal gallery owner Eric Devlin said yesterday.
"He talked to anyone who was interested in the subject, even if they
weren't students in his class. Once he got started, it was impossible
for him to stop."
Moli, as he was known affectionately throughout the visual-arts
community, reduced painting to its essentials - form and colour.
His philosophy about painting was simple: "There is no such thing as a
colour," he once said, "there are only colour harmonies. A given colour
exists only in its shape and dimensions - and in its correlation with
other colours."
Guido Molinari was born in Montreal on Oct. 12, 1933. His father played
with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra; his mother was the daughter of a
craftsman who cast plaster religious statues.
Molinari began painting when he was 13. At 16, he contracted
tuberculosis, and while he was recovering, he read the authors who would
shape the existentialist approach to his art: Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus
and Piaget.
Between 1948 and '52, Molinari studied design at the École des Beaux
Arts and at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, where he was taught by
Louis Archambault and Marian Scott.
He opened his own studio in 1951 and, heavily influenced by the
rectangular planes of pure colour of Dutch artist Piet Mondrian, started
producing canvases "anchored in colour, not in ideology."
He experimented by painting blindfolded and in the dark. Initially, his
work was not taken seriously.
After Molinari read a 1955 article in Life magazine about Jackson
Pollock dripping paint onto canvas, he went to New York to hone his
taste for the abstract. When he returned to Montreal, he started
painting using only black and white, and turned out some of the best
works in his career. But he didn't make much money from them.
"I form a parallel with Mondrian, who was never accepted in Paris,"
Molinari said at the time. "It was only in New York he had his one-man
shows. My works, like Mondrian's, were initially dismissed as
experimental art, and therefore unsuitable for collecting."
Molinari opened his own gallery, Actuelle, on Sherbrooke St. in 1955.
Although he exhibited in the 1961 Paris Biennale and the critics liked
him, he had a hard time selling his paintings until 1965, when he took
part in an exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art.
In 1967, Molinari won a Guggenheim fellowship.
During the 1960s, most of his paintings were multi-coloured vertical
stripes, but by 1970 he had abandoned the stripes in favour of
modularized triangles and rectangles.
In 1976, the National Gallery in Ottawa held the first major
retrospective of his work.
Molinari married Fernande Sainte-Martin, a leading Quebec journalist,
writer and former director of the Musée d'Art Contemporain, in 1958.
They had two children, a son and daughter. Their daughter died four
years ago.
Molinari was appointed an officer of the Order of Canada in 1971, and in
1980 was awarded the Prix du Québec.
A major restrospective of his work was shown at the Musée d'art
contemporain in Montreal in 1995. Since then, there have been major
shows in France, Holland and Germany.
The family will receive condolences at the Sans Regret Funeral home,
3191 Ontario St. E., on Saturday, starting at 10 a.m.
The funeral will be held at the Church of the
Nativité-de-la-Sainte-Vierge across the street at 1855 Dézéry St. that
day at 1:30 p.m.
- - -
Guido Molinari's Words
"For me, all painting is colour."
"I find it nicer to be slightly underground than overly accepted."
"Any work of art is a cross reference. It points out new aspects of
life, it enriches. Artists strive for the positive. It is not an elitist
attitude. One has to be initiated, as in most things of life, even sex.
Art is a perception and an act of faith."
"Abstraction is a novel. I mean, really, it is. There's no meaning in a
text. It's how you read it. You have to read texts, whether they are on
canvases or in print or played on instruments."
Obituary of Guido Molinari
Paul Morgan
wrote:
>NEWS STORY
>Artist used form, colour
>Montreal painter, teacher Guido Molinari dies at 70
>
Another Canadian dies, interesting to see he was recognized by Canada
before Quebec.
Pilobolus
"Bidoux" <bid...@videotron.fr> wrote in message
news:4038EBA7...@videotron.fr...
NEWS STORY
Artist used form, colour
Montreal painter, teacher Guido Molinari dies at 70
Thanks for mentioning that.
I reminds me of time when I was hanging out at Charlie Biddles jazz club.
I went to Montreal last year and heard that Charlie was dead.
He was born in Detroit and lived in the grand city of Montreal.
I guess that "Guido Molinari" is as French as "Charlie Biddle"
Bless both their souls.
It's always sad to lose people we respect.
David Deilley
> Bidoux <bid...@videotron.fr> wrote:
>
> >NEWS STORY
> >Artist used form, colour
> >Montreal painter, teacher Guido Molinari dies at 70
> >
> Another Canadian dies, interesting to see he was recognized by Canada
> before Quebec.
That's because he was Italian "allophone" and taught at an English-language
university.
Pilobolus
"David Deilley" <integr...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:RP5_b.594211$ts4.422505@pd7tw3no...
David.
Don't you think it would be called "taking the high road" if you just said
"shit, didn't know his work, but thanks Bidoux, for pointing him out?"
Agendas are useless at times
David Deilley
> David.
>
> Don't you think it would be called "taking the high road" if you just said
> "shit, didn't know his work, but thanks Bidoux, for pointing him out?"
>
> Agendas are useless at times
>
I'm just so ashamed.