René Després, a leading figure in painting and pictorial art in Quebec and around the world, dies at the age of 73

MONTREAL, Aug. 5, 2021 /PRNewswire/ - René Després was an original figure in the Quebec art world. Born in Montreal in 1947, Després realized at a very young age that he had "a good brush". Passionate about painting and music, he was fascinated from a very young age by the paintings of the great masters, but he set out on his own path and refused to accept any traditional artistic teaching. It is thus as a self-taught artist that he undertakes his own pictorial explorations at the age of 16.

Nourished by the rigour of the Renaissance painters, but also attracted by the audacity of Picasso and Dali, he practised chiaroscuro, surrealism and then abstract art and explored various avenues in new figurative art, before giving birth in 1981 to his own school, Extra-realism, a style of painting on the border between abstract and figurative art, which offers a profusion of forms and colours based on both the fiery vigour of the gesture and the subtleties of a technique combining oil and ink.

A prolific painter but also a talented photographer, he brings the painter's vision to photography, and the photographer's eye to his painting.

Fascinated by people, Després considers himself an awakener and a messenger as a painter. Deeply immersed in the world of art, he remains firmly rooted in the political and social reality of our time and environment.

A painting like Després' Scream, a nod and homage to Munch's painting, expresses the anguish of humanity in the face of this virus from nowhere, the deep fear and immense rage that plunges us into the darkness of uncertainty.

The publication Horses includes works that speak to what is happening on our planet at the moment, from the fragility of democratic institutions to the fragility of our environment.

The artist was the subject of the book DESPRÉS by art critic Guy Robert, published in six languages and winner of a prestigious international award. The author was a renowned art historian, a doctor of aesthetics from the University of Paris, and the founder of the very first Museum of Contemporary Art in Canada. DESPRÉS was his last book.

Since 1980, René Després' works have been exhibited in Montreal, Paris, Monaco, Beijing, Manila, Milan, Tokyo, London, New York and Dubai. Many of his paintings are now in major American and European collections alongside Renoir, Kandinsky, Picasso and Pollock, Borduas and Riopelle. In 1999, he was awarded the Gutenberg Grand Prize for the art book DESPRÉS.

Family and friends will be received at
Urgel Bourgie Athos
2500, avenue des Perron , Auteuil, Laval, (Québec) H7J 1G5 , August 26 , 2021 from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m.

SOURCE Les Éditions Jean Renoir jr