Paul Carmel Laporte

Paul Carmel Laporte (July 16, 1885 – July 25, 1973) was a Canadian physician, businessman and artist. After studying medicine in Montreal, which he financed by working as an apprentice sculptor, Laporte became a physician in New Brunswick. In addition to founding a hospital, two museums, the first French-language radio station in Atlantic Canada, a construction company, and many other projects, he taught art as a volunteer for forty years. He is considered a pioneer of the visual arts in Madawaska, on the US–Canadian border, and many of his students have had a major impact on Acadian culture.

Biography

Origins Paul Carmel Laporte was born on 16 July 1885, in Verchères, Quebec. His parents were Jean-Baptiste Laporte and Arthémise Lenoblet, married in the town of Contrecœur. His father, Jean-Baptiste Laporte, was born on February 10, 1840, in Lanoraie and died on 6 May 1928, in Verchères. His mother, Arthémise Lenoblet-Duplessis, was born on 17 June 1850, in Lanoraie and died on 27 November 1934, in Maisonneuve, now a district of Montreal. then studied painting in his teens. He entered the Collège de Verchères, graduating from high school at the age of 14. He then worked as a sculptor to pay for his medical studies.

Career in Madawaska

Upon receiving his doctorate, Paul Carmel Laporte moved with two of his brothers to Madawaska, New Brunswick. Pio Héliodore was also a doctor, while Sydney was a photographer. Following the death of Dr. Rouleau, Paul Carmel opened a practice in Grand Falls nurses were also trained. The hospital was transferred to the Clair Red Cross Society on 12 November 1928. On 1 November 1931, the P.C. Laporte Hospital was destroyed by fire, and patients were transferred to the upper floors of the Clair House Hotel. He excelled in the representation of relief, as exemplified by the pulpit in Edmundston's Anglican Church. At the end of the World War II, he created a monumental work entitled Courage et dévouement, which won him an award in Atlantic City in 1947. Possibly a monument to the dead, the work depicts Death beneath the crest of a tsunami, as soldiers march over corpses.

An inventor and do-it-yourselfer, Paul Carmel created a solid, compact piece of furniture, incorporating a workbench, a drawing table, a toolbox, and an armchair to facilitate the work of sculptors and painters. Until the 1960s, painting and sculpture in Acadia remained mainly the work of church decorators, most of whom were self-taught or trained outside the province. Marie-Hélène Allain's sculptures adorn many of the province's public buildings. Albert Nadeau made his career in Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, Quebec, and is considered Canada's finest woodcarver. Claude Roussel has a studio in Cap-Pelé, in the southeast of the province, where he has played a key role in contemporary Acadian culture. He was also the founder of the Federation of Canadian Sculptors in 1951, and of the Le Burin club for woodcarvers in 1967. Laporte also directed the Edmundston fanfare, founded by his brother Sydney in 1914, for a few months.

Awards

1967: Order of Canada 1968: Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, Université de Moncton Doctor of Arts, honoris causa, Université Saint-Louis Commander in Justice of the Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE)