Artist of the Day, November 27, 2024: Yves Trudeau, a Québecois sculptor (#2168)

 Yves Trudeau CM RCA (1930 – 2017) was a Canadian sculptor and a prominent figure in 20th-century art in Quebec, especially public art.

Yves Trudeau studied at the École des Beaux-Arts de Montréal and began his career in the 1950s. At first concentrating on bronze sculptures, he later incorporated wood and iron into his works.

Yves Trudeau, one of the most significant artists of his generation, was known for having a rigorous sculptural practice with an underlying social message. His activities as a founding member of the Association des sculpteurs du Québec, for which he also served as president, led to the creation of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.

Trudeau became involved with a number of associations to promote the rights and status of artists. Having studied a range of artistic disciplines in his youth, Trudeau first worked primarily as a ceramicist before turning his attention to sculpture in the late 1950s. His work from the 1960s features a more expressionistic and abstract approach to materials, echoing the great social upheavals of the period.

Trudeau used a mixture of materials such as wood and metal (iron, bronze, aluminum), and made them interact with each other through complex textures and configurations, often in an ascending movement that emphasized verticality. From the 1970s onward his style became more pared-down, as evidenced in his open and closed “wall” works in which folded volumes are rhythmically spaced to actively interact with those who experience them.

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Yves Trudeau

Rythme oval, circa 1963

Sans titre, circa 1964

Haut-relief, circa 1964

Maquette pour "Haut-relief", circa 1964-94

Chrysalide (Iron and Wood Series), circa 1965

Horus, circa 1965

Esquisse pour relief - L'homme dans la cité, circa 1966

Sans titre, circa 1966

Trirème, circa 1966

Sans titre, circa 1967

Sans titre, circa 1970

Sans titre, circa 1970

Mur ouvert, circa 1971

Sans titre, circa 1971

Paix, circa 1972

Paix, circa 1973

Abstraction, circa 1975

Mur fermé et ouvert (Projet pour métro), circa 1977

 Sans titre, circa 1980

 Sans titre, circa 1980

La croix du sud, circa 1983

Le masque, circa 1984

Arc-boutant, circa 1986

Sculpture en bronze, circa 1991

Sans titre, circa 2000

Cathédrale, circa 2005

Parvis et Portail #27, circa 2005

Abstrait, circa 2006

Chapiteaux I, circa 2010

Mur fermé et ouvert Nº XXVII

Parvis et portails

Tridimensional Expansion