Edmund Alleyn

Edmund Alleyn (June09, 1931 December24, 2004) had an art career that underwent many stylistic changes. He explored various styles of painting including abstraction, narrative figuration, technology and pop art, as well as different media. Critics feel that his inability to be categorized marks him as contemporary.

Early years Born in Québec City in 1931 to a family of English and Irish heritage, Edmund Alleyn attended the École des beaux-arts in Québec City, where he studied with Jean Paul Lemieux and Jean Dallaire. In 1955, he won the Grand Prix aux concours artistiques de la Province de Québec and a grant from the Royal Society of Canada. and in 1959 he won the bronze medal at the São Paulo Biennale, then in 1960, with Graham Coughtry, Jean Paul Lemieux, Frances Loring, and Albert Dumouchel, he represented Canada at the Venice Biennial. In the period 1962 to 1964, Alleyn's growing interest in North American Indigenous art was reflected in ideographic and biomorphic forms and more colourful work, then by the mid-1960s he created "cybernetic" figurative painting. Afterwards, inspired by the 1968 uprisings in Paris, he experimented with film and technological sculpture, moving toward an imagery that came from technology, electronics and mass media. Eventually he created the moody private landscapes of his large-scale paintings done between 1983 and 1990. which consisted of 12 large canvases as well as ink washes that echoed his abstract and figurative work of the 1960s. His works are included in the collections of Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal and the National Gallery of Canada, among others.

Major solo exhibitions during his lifetime The introscaphe 1, Museum of Modern Art in Paris, 1970 Les Éphémérides, Sherbrooke Museum of Fine Arts, 2004 1955 grant from the Royal Society of Canada

Legacy In 2016, the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal organized a second retrospective titled Dans mon atelier, je suis plusieurs (In My Studio, I am Many), curated by Mark Lanctôt.