Known for his participation in the group Les Plasticiens, Fernand Toupin starts his artistic formation by taking drawing classes at Coll\u00e8ge Mont-Saint-Louis in Montr\u00e9al. He then studied at l\u2019\u00c9cole des Beaux-Arts de Montr\u00e9al. From 1949 to 1953, he works in Stanley Cosgrove\u2019s workshop.<\/p>\n
Toupin\u2019s artistic career really begins in 1954. In 1955, he signs with Louis Belzile, Jean-Paul J\u00e9r\u00f4me and Jauran (Rodolphe de Repentigny) the Plasticiens\u2019 Manifesto, written by Rodolphe de Repentigny. Opposed to the spontaneous and expressive art of the Automatists, Les Plasticiens endorse an art particularly inspired by Mondrian and will participate at a new painting movement\u2019s emergence in Qu\u00e9bec : the geometrical abstraction. Within this new movement, the image is considered like a bidimensional object that refuses any depth effect on the canvas. Fernand Toupin\u2019s \u201cshaped canvas\u201d or \u201cobject-canvas\u201d as the art critics named them, remain an important contribution from the artist to the movement.<\/p>\n
In 1959, Toupin\u2019s art engages in a new direction. Always interested by abstraction, the artist explores texture with a more abundant material on the canvas, where the pigments are mixed with marble dust. Toupin expresses his surrounding environment: Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s landscapes. \u201cI like to feel the simmering of things as they are made. The uprising of the waves. The freshness of the snow. The ubiquity of the minerals.\u201d In 1992, Fernand Toupin creates a series of small canvas, which will materialize this idea. The \u00c9corces sous la neige (bark under the snow), are miniature artworks made of marble dust in which the artist has inserted small pieces of bark and other natural materials onto the canvas. These elements thus become small treasures carefully buried under the snow. Then, in 1993, he goes back to geometrical abstraction.<\/p>\n
Parallel to his painter career, Toupin was the exhibition Director for the Association des artistes non-figuratifs de Montr\u00e9al, from 1963 to 1974. In 1977, he is elected member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (R.C.A). During the same year, he creates a mural titled \u201cHochelaga\u201d for the venue Wilfrid-Pelletier of Place-des-Arts.<\/p>\n
His paintings are part of numerous museums and public collections such as: Mus\u00e9e national des beaux-arts du Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s collection, the Mus\u00e9e d\u2019art contemporain de Montr\u00e9al, the Mus\u00e9e des beaux-arts de Montr\u00e9al and the Mus\u00e9e des beaux-arts du Canada as well as in several private collections in Canada, United-States and Europe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fernand Toupin
\nSans titre<\/em>, 1980
\nacrylic on canvas
\n20 x 15 cm (8 x 6 in)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":6305,"template":"","meta":[],"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[54,53],"product_tag":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-710","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-abstract-paintings","7":"product_cat-paintings","9":"first","10":"instock","11":"sold-individually","12":"taxable","13":"shipping-taxable","14":"purchasable","15":"product-type-simple"},"yoast_head":"\n