Françoise Sullivan

Françoise Sullivan ( born June 10, 1925 in Montreal ) is a Canadian painter, sculptor, dancer and choreographer.

If and work

Sullivan studied from 1940 to 1944 at the École des beaux -arts de Montréal. Her first paintings were influenced by Fauvism and Cubism. By Paul -Émile Borduas they came up with the group of automatists in Montreal in contact. The art historian Maurice Gagnon chose their works for the exhibition dedicated to the automatism Les Sagittaires 1943 in the Dominion Gallery.

From 1945 to 1946 Sullivan studied modern dance in New York at Franziska Boas, the daughter of the anthropologist Franz Boas, a short time even with Martha Graham and Louis Horst. In 1948 she published the essay La danse et l' espoir, which was added to the global Automatistengruppe and Borduas in the manifesto Refus. Her performance with her dance partner Jeanne Renaud 1948 Ross House is considered the founding event of modern dance in Québec.

1949 Sullivan married the painter Paterson Ewen. Between 1952 and 1956 she worked as a choreographer and dancer for the TV of the CBC. In the late 1950s she turned under the guidance of Armand Vaillancourt sculpture and learned welding at the École technique de Lachine. In 1960, she took a three month course in sculpture at Louis Archambault at the École des Beaux -arts. For Expo 67, she created a monumental sculpture. Since the late 1960s, she experimented with the material Plexiglas. 1976 began their collaboration with the sculptor David Moore.

In the 1980s, Sullivan turned back to painting, and written between 1982-1994 several cycles of paintings, which are regarded as the culmination of their work in this area. In 1997, the granite sculpture Montagnes was created for the Science Pavilion at the University of Quebec, 2000 an honorary doctorate awarded her.

Since 1997, Sullivan teaches dance at Concordia University. In 2001 she was appointed a member of the Order of Canada. The Musée des Beaux -arts de Montréal in 2003 showed a retrospective of her works.

Prizes and awards

Works (selection)

Choreographies

  • Dance in the Snow, 1948
  • Rose Latulippe, Fernsehballett, 1953

Sculptures

  • Chute concentrique, 1963
  • Montagnes, 1997

Painting

  • Tête amérindienne II, 1941
  • Tondos - Cycle crétois
  • Prometheus
  • Agora
  • Vestiges au Mont Nemrut
Surrealist automatism Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Integrated Authority File
346208
de