| Richard-Max Tremblay | |
| Birth Place: | Bromptonville (Sherbrooke), Quebec |
| Field: | Painter, Photographer |
| Awards: | 2015 RCA Trust Award, 2003 Prix Louis-Comtois |
| Elected: | Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA) |
Richard-Max Tremblay (born 1952) is a Canadian artist and photographer. Known for painting and photographic portraits, Tremblay's artistic approach is described as "a dialogue between two media, photography and painting".[1] He is the recipient of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts' 2015 RCA Trust Award,[2] the 2003 Prix Louis-Comtois,[3] and, as cinematographer of Gugging, the 1996 Special Jury Prize, International Festival of Films on Art and Pedagogy (UNESCO Paris).[3] Tremblay's work is found in the collections of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts,[2] Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Musée d’art de Joliette, the City of Montreal and the Canada Council for the Arts' Art Bank.[4] [5]
Richard-Max Tremblay was born in the Eastern-Township community of Bromptonville, Quebec. As a young art student a viewing of a painting by Pierre Soulages at the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art made a lasting impression.[6] He moved to Montreal to study art in 1972 and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Université du Québec à Montréal in 1975. He continued art studies in London in 1979-80 and received a post-graduate Diploma in Fine Arts from Goldsmiths College of Art and Design (now Goldsmiths, University of London).[4] [7] On his return to Montreal, Tremblay continued to paint and exhibited a series on London-deckchairs Les chaises in 1984 and portraits Têtes in 1985 at Galerie 13.[8] [9] At this time Tremblay began to explore photography and his images of artists Guido Molinari, Yves Gaucher, and Betty Goodwin were exhibited as Portraits 1983-1987 at John A. Schweitzer Gallery.[10] In 1987 he was commissioned by the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec to photograph recipients of the Prix Paul-Émile Borduas for the 1988 exhibition L'art au Québec depuis Pellan: une histoire des prix Borduas.[1] Solo exhibitions of his work were held in 1994 at the Musée d’art de Joliette and Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts (Montreal).[11] From 1993-9 he was cinematographer, editor, and co-writer of the video Gugging (1996), on artists at the Gugging psychiatric residence near Vienna, Austria.[3] [7] By 1999 Tremblay's practice also included painting installations exhibited as Hors-Champs at the Montreal Telegraph Building.[12] He also exhibited there with Jean-Pierre Gauthier, Raymond Gervais, and John Heward in the 2000 multi-media exhibition on sound Montréal Télégraphe: le son iconographe which he co-curated with Louise Provencher.[13] [14] In 2001 an exhibition of black and white paintings Entre noir et blanc at Sherbrooke Museum of Fine Arts was followed by a second series Contretemps at Galerie Art Mûr in 2004.[13] [15] In 2010 Tremblay's photographs of windows in abandoned buildings were exhibited as Les tanneries at Association Artmandat in Barjols, France, and as Windows in 2011 at Galerie Division in Montreal.[16] [17] That year Montreal Museum of Fine Arts curator Diane Charbonneau organized a Tremblay photographic retrospective Tête-à-tête: Portraits of Artists, with 20 images from the museum's collection, including those of Francine Simonin, Michel Goulet, John A. Schweitzer, Manon de Pauw, and BGL.[6] [18] To coincide with the exhibition, a monograph of his work written by André Lamarre Richard-Max Tremblay. Portrait. was published by Éditions du passage.[6] A Tremblay retrospective was also held in 2011 at the Maison des arts et de la culture de Brompton.[1] In 2014 he was artist-in‐residence at the Canada Council for the Arts' Paris Studio.[2]
In 2018 Tremblay lived and worked in Montreal.[4]
Known for his photographic portraits of artists, Tremblay's early images of Martha Townsend and Fernand Leduc feature face and hands.[19] By 1986 his photographs of Betty Goodwin, John Heward and Pierre Soulages include studio shots to "introduce the work of the artist in the portrait."[1] Other photographic series include windows of derelict buildings and empty, stacked boxes, a comment on the disappearance of archival records in a digital era. Tremblay described photography and painting as preservative, "acts of resistance against time", which are also "consequential acts that lead elsewhere, that sweep us forward."[20] He also described his use of photography as either "a step in the creation of a photographic work" or as a "painting which is inconceivable without the photographic juncture".[21] Also known for figurative art, Tremblay's early painting series Têtes (1985) was described as "anti-portraits",[9] while later compositions of "heads and gestural blurrings" link photographic realism to abstract-lyricism.[22] Recent paintings of Paris, Berlin or Venice also reference as metaphors mirrors or windows and the comcept of hidden and revealed.[23] [24] In 1975 Tremblay wrote, "I am fond of the theme of the black curtain... about showing what prevents you from seeing."[25] His sources of inspiration include Renaissance art, philosophical novels such as The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera,[1] as well as works by Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, and W. G. Sebald.[26]
An elected member of the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts, Tremblay is the recipient of the 2015 RCA Trust Award.[2] [27] He was also awarded the 2003 Prix Louis-Comtois for "excellence within the visual arts" by the City of Montreal and the Contemporary Art Galleries Association (AGAC).[3] Known for photography, painting, and the creative "synergy and fusion" between the two,[28] Voir journalist Matthieu Petit wrote that Tremblay's "signature lies in photographic and pictorial parallels, but also in the enigmas that he enjoys developing."[1] Art reviewer Françoise Belu noted in his work a sense "of being and non-being",[29] which Nancy Pedri described in Circa Art as "showing and hiding, the curtain and the motif".[30] Noting the viewer's role in completing the staging or mis-en-scene, Vie des Arts critic Jean-Jacques Bernier described his work as "moving from the particular to the general or universal".[31] Also recognized as a cinematographer, Tremblay's video "Gugging", co-written and produced with Anne-Marie Rocher, received the 1996 Special Jury Prize – International Festival of Films on Art and Pedagogy (UNESCO Paris, France).[3]