Fleurimond Constantineau
Canadian painter and draftman
Fleurimond Constantineau was born in Montreal in 1905. He began his studies at the Montreal School of Fine Arts in 1924, where he was quickly recognized for his drawing talents. He became a teacher in the same institution until the end of the 1940s. His first participation in the Spring Salon of the “Art Association” dates from 1931 and continued for the next 15 years.
Like the Canadian painters of the time who all painted the winter of Quebec and Canada, Fleurimond Constantineau stands out from all by going to explore even further north, in the Quebec Arctic. Michel Brochu tells us about the painter's exploration trips: “He went there twice (in the Arctic), at least, aboard the Stella Fblaris, a wooden ship of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate which, each summer, resupplied their missions in the Hudson Strait and the Hudson Sea. Fleurimond Constantineau's first method was therefore to paint coastal seascapes, with choppy waters in which ice cubes from the last winter drift, ice cubes which have little to do with the plate ice of the St. Lawrence River. In the background, the typical landscapes of the Hudson Strait can be seen, made up of mineral masses still covered with vast snowy veneers. These icy waters and frigid Precambrian geology are topped by arctic skies, where steel grey and blue combine luminously. »1
After the Second World War, Fleurimond Contantineau resumed its activities with two trips to New Quebec. First, in Fort-Chimo, now Kuujuak, in the fall of 1967 and then, two years later, in Maricourt, Kagnirsujuak, in the Hudson Bay Strait
The artist also left an important leg in southern Quebec by founding, in 1935, with friends, sculptors and painters, a company designing allegorical floats for several parades taking place in the city of Montreal. This association lasted until 1960. At the same time, he taught drawing in numerous schools.
1 translated from French: Brochu, M. (1999). Fleurimond Constantineau : peintre lumineux de l’Arctique québécois. Cap-aux-Diamants, (56), 40–40.