Jean-Guy Mongeau
1931 – 2000

Born in Verdun, Montreal, Jean Guy Mongeau graduated from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1957 in advertising art, but by 1959 he had moved from abstract figurative to lyrical abstract, and won the Club des Beaux-Arts prize the same year. In 1960 Mongeau won the Salon de la Jeune Peinture. He received more recognition in his young career by winning the Winnipeg show in 1961 and 1962. Mongeau continued to teach plastic arts until 1983, at which time he devoted himself full time to photography, multi media art and painting.

His first solo show was at the Galerie Helene de Champlaine (1960), Walter Klinkhoff Gallery in the same year, Galerie Libre 1961,62,63,65,66. Montreal Museum of Fine Arts 1960 , Ecole des Beaux-Arts Montreal 1961, London Art Museum 1961.
Dorothy Pfeiffer, art critic for the Montreal Gazette, described his works as follows: “Mongeau’s personal style of painting is recognizable immediately. He uses oil paint almost as if it were enamel. His colors either smoulder or flare up, or else they quietly sing.”¹

Credit: ¹A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, Colin S. MacDonald, Vol 4