Léo Ayotte
(1909 - 1976)
Canadian
Born on October 10 1909 in Sainte-Flore, Quebec, the canadian painter Léo Ayotte began his artistic formation at the Séraphique College in Trois-Rivières. A few years later, he moved to Montreal to improve his painting skills. For lack of means, he starts a job as janitor and then as model at the Montreal School of Fine Arts and he develop friendships with the students and the professors. These jobs allow him to listen to the valuable advices of the professors, without actively participating in classes. Using tubes of color forgotten by some students, he began to paint and he organize few vernissages at his residence. In the 1960s, he traveled to Europe and met several great masters like Jean Dallaire and Roussil.
The work of Léo Ayotte is characterized by a very sure and spontaneous brushes strokes. He regularly creates his paintings using a single brush and applying the painting of the tube directly on the canvas. During the last decade of life, he enjoyed a considerable notoriety in the artistic sphere of Quebec, which allows him to create abundantly.
Léo Ayotte passed away in 1976, at the age of 67 years old.