About the Author

Michèle Grandbois

Michèle Grandbois is an independent art historian. Holding a doctorate in history from Université Laval in Quebec City, she taught art history before becoming a curator at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (MNBAQ) in 1987. She was initially responsible for the collection of works on paper and later became the curator of the collection of modern art in painting and sculpture. She retired from the MNBAQ in 2014.

 

In addition to her work documenting, promoting, and enriching the museum’s collections, Grandbois has coordinated, curated, or co-curated some thirty exhibitions. She has written numerous monographic and thematic studies on Canadian art—particularly on the artists Jean-Philippe Dallaire, Clarence Gagnon, and Jean Paul Lemieux. Her books L’art québécois de l’estampe, 1945–1990 and Le nu dans l’art moderne canadien, 1920–1950 (published in English as The Nude in Modern Canadian Art, 1920–1950) received the Award of Outstanding Achievement in Research from the Canadian Museums Association in 1996 and 2011, respectively. The publication Marc-Aurèle Fortin: The Experience of Colour, which she edited, won the Prix Marcel-Couture at the Salon du livre de Montréal in 2011. Her final project as a curator for the MNBAQ was the 2014 exhibition Morrice et Lyman en compagnie de Matisse (Morrice and Lyman in the Company of Matisse).

 

Driven by a desire to more deeply understand art history and make it more widely accessible, Grandbois is now dedicated to writing about Canadian modern art for museums and art galleries. Her interest in Jean Paul Lemieux has resulted in exhibition catalogues at the MNBAQ (2001, 2005, 2007) and a digital book for the Art Canada Institute (2016), and it continues in the form of various research projects today.