Artist of the day: Artist of the Day, February 16, 2026 : Léo-Paul Tremblé, a Québécois Painter (#2481)

Monday, February 16, 2026

Artist of the Day, February 16, 2026 : Léo-Paul Tremblé, a Québécois Painter (#2481)

Léo-Paul Tremblé (1924- 1995), Born in Kénogami, Saguenay, Québec into a family of 13 children. He was interested very early in drawing, modeling and coloring the illustrations found in books and magazines. Later, thanks to a job in forestry sites, he began to paint on spruce bark.

He discovered painters and fine arts by visiting the (national) Museum of Fine Arts in Quebec City, and, a year later, an art gallery in Montreal where paintings by Canadian artists members of the Group of Seven are exhibited.

From then on, at 19, Léo-Paul Tremblé knows that he has found his way: painting is for him the only way to access what he is deeply, and to express it. He begins to paint with ardor and in all his free time. Landscapes, trees, still lifes are his privileged subjects.

In 1952, he married Suzette Savard, with whom he had four children: she would become his commercial agent, support him and support him throughout his life.

In 1964, he left his job at the Alcan factory in Isle-Maligne to devote himself to painting.
In 1977, he moved to Arvida, where he spent the rest of his life.
During the 50th anniversary of his career, Léo-Paul Tremblé produced more than 2 000 works.

A first exhibition presented at Arvida City Hall in 1957 marks the beginning of his professional career. He then regularly exhibits at Arvida City Hall and Alma, as well as at the La Corniche gallery in Chicoutimi. In 1959, he presented a first exhibition in Quebec City, at the Palais Montcalm, at the same time as the painters René Richard and Albert Rousseau: all his paintings were removed in a short time.

Then came several exhibitions across Quebec, including the Zannetin Gallery in Quebec City and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

In 1978, the Collège d'Alma opened an exhibition hall, called Salle Tremblé, and presented a retrospective of the artist's 25-year career.

In the same year, the Clarence-Gagnon Gallery presented a major exhibition of Tremblé’s works in Montreal. In 1992, Broquet publisher dedicated a monograph to him in the famous Signatures collection, with a text signed Madeleine Ouellette-Michalska.

Many works are collected in the collections of Hydro-Québec, the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Québec, Alcan, Abitibi-Price and the Musée régional du Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, the Pulperie de Chicoutimi. The latter dedicated an important retrospective to him in 2011-2012 and renamed Salle Léo-Paul Tremblé the room located north of the museum, to honor his memory. It is also present in the collections of the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal.

Léo-Paul Tremblé is essentially a self-taught, although his few years of studies in architectural drawing have left their mark in his work. He is considered a figurative painter.

He said he learned his craft through the look: the observation of his environment as well as the examination of works of art. He also trained in contact with other painters, such as Suzor-Coté, Marc-Aurèle Fortin, Jean Paul Lemieux, René Richard and Albert Rousseau and especially Jean-Paul Riopelle. The influence of the latter was so strong that it prompted Tremblé to explore the abstract style for a few years.

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