Claude Picher: End of the Land – Online Exhibition

The Petley Jones Gallery presents a collection of artworks by prominent Canadian painter and museum professional, Claude Picher, R.C.A. (1927-1998), in the online exhibition, “End of the Land,” from September 16th to November 16th, 2023.

The exhibition dives into Claude Picher’s fidelity to Quebec, with a focus on the Gaspésie peninsula. The name Gaspésie is a derivative of the word Gaspé which is a derivative of the Micmac term Gespeg meaning “end of the land”. The Canadian painter dedicated his final decade to painting his corner of the country. “It is my testament to my adopted land, Gaspésie. She gave me everything,” Picher explained when forming his collection of over 100 works in his series, The Color of Gaspé Coast.

Claude Picher (1927-1998) was born in Québec city. He studied at the École Nationale des beaux-arts in Quebec (1945-46), with Jean-Paul Lemieux as his teacher, and then at the New School of Social Research in New York (1947-48). After receiving a grant from the French Government, Picher stayed in Paris for two years (1948-1949) and attended the École du Louvre and the École Nationale supérieure des beaux-arts.

Claude Picher’s subjects included portraits, figures, landscapes, still life, snowscapes, village scenes, city scenes, rural scenes, marine scenes, winter sports and genre. His style could be described as Fauvism.

He was successively Exhibition Director at the Musée du Québec (1950-1958); representative at the National Gallery of Canada for the Eastern Region (1958-1962), and assistant director at the Musée du Québec (1963-1964). He represented Canada at the Fifth Biennial of Canadian Painting at the Commonwealth Institute in London (1973). In 1979, he exhibited in the same city with the Elisabeth T. Greenshield Collection. Four other group exhibitions were held in London (England), Paris, Madrid, and Düsseldorf (Germany), with the O.J. Firestone Collection.

Notable Honors:

1st Prize, Drawing and Painting (1941-1946) at the Exposition Provinciale de Québec.

1st prize, Salon du Printemps, Montréal Museum of Fine Arts (1956).

1st Canadian artist to receive a grant from the Salvador Dali Foundation of the Bryn Mawr University in Pennsylvania (1958).

In 1960, he became a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and an associate member in 1973.

Picher represented Canada at the 2nd Biennale Internationale in Paris (1962).