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Marc-Aurèle Suzor Coté
(1869-1937)

Marc-Aurèle was a Canadian painter and sculptor. He was one of the first native-born Canadian artists whose works were directly influenced by the Old World's Impressionism of the 1860's.

Born in Arthabaska, Quebec in 1869 he was raised in a creative home, as his father was an artist. Suzor Coté studied at the Collège du Sacré-Coeur, Arthabaska. Not only visually brilliant, Suzor Coté also studied music at the Conservatory of Music in Paris in 1890. There, he was a baritone singer. He studied painting and sculpture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris with Léon Bonnat during the 1890s, and then furthered his studies at the Julian and Colarossi Academies.

It was his academic style and dreamy palette that garnered him the opportunity to exhibit his works in the Salon des Artistes Français in 1894. More specifically, his painting, "Death of Archimedes" won the Grand Prize at the Paris Salon, giving the young Canadian painter international recognition.

Eventually Suzor Coté returned back to his homeland and opened up a studio in Montreal. From here he began painting classically styled landscapes of the rural areas surrounding the city. During his time in Montreal, he became very well-known for his impressionistic interpretations of Quebec landscapes, portraits, nudes, historical paintings and later sculptures. He was adamantly drawn to the effects that the sun had on the water and snow. He mastered the art of light and shadow, through an impeccable visual vocabulary, which was rooted in his finely-tuned observational skills. Fairly loose with his brush stroke, Suzor Coté work has a very definitive style throughout both his landscape representations and portraits.

He developed a classical sculpting practice in 1911 that thematically represented some literary works that inspired him, namely: the works of Maria Chapdelaine. He created several bronze casted sculptures in his notorious impressionist style that adorn the rooms of the Museé des Beaux Arts in Montreal and in Ottawa. Suzor Coté`s work has been collected at the National Gallery in Ottawa and his work is owned in several international, as well as, provincial galleries throughout Quebec.

Suzor Coté became paralyzed in 1927 and tragically had to halt all of his art practices. He moved to Daytona Beach in Florida, where he spent the remainder of his days unaffected by the harsh Quebec winters and died ten years later on January 26th, 1937.

Nude (Mlle Bourrassa)
Pastel
17" X 10.5"
     
SOLD
The Old Road, Arthabaska
Oil on Cardboard
10.5" X 13.25"
Sold
     

 

 

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