Pellan, Alfred

Alfred Pellan was born in Quebec City in 1906. At an early age, he enrolled in the School of fine arts of Quebec where he won medals in painting, drawing and sculpture. He sold his first painting at the age of 17 to the National Gallery of the Canada. In 1926 he received the first Quebec arts scholarship, which allows him to go to Paris to study at l’École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts where he won “a first prize of painting” in 1928 and a first prize of mural art in 1935.

Back to Quebec, he signed the manifesto “Prisme d’yeux” of Jacques de Tonnancour, with Charles Daudelin, Albert Dumouchel, Léon Bellefleur and others. In the early 1950’s, le Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris hosted an exhibition of 181 of his works. He became the first Canadian Artist to receive such an honour.

Alfred Pellan is known as one of the major painters of Quebec. He died in Laval 1988.