Mr. Speaker, today I want to pay tribute to the life and legacy of Quebec painter Fernand Leduc, who died yesterday at the age of 97.
Mr. Leduc was born in Viauville, in the east end of Montreal, in 1916. He was educated by the Frères maristes from 1927 to 1939 and graduated from the Montreal School of Fine Arts in 1943. He was an important figure in the Automatiste movement. He moved his art from the non-figurative to the abstract. In 1987, he said: “As an artist, I see myself as working in an Impressionist tradition of 'painters of light'”.
I invite all my colleagues to visit the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec to see the exhibit of 30 or so of his works. The exhibit opens on February 20. Without question, Canada has lost one of the greatest painters and artists in its history.