René Richard: Works on Paper

Recent purchases of a group of excellent illustrations by René Richard (1895-1982) inspired this reflection of his stature as an important and genuine Canadian artist. He has long been considered of iconic stature in Quebec, the province where he made his home almost thirty years after his arrival in Canada from Switzerland with his father and mother. Manitoba born author, Gabrielle Roy, celebrated René Richard by styling her hero, Pierre Cadoral, in La Montagne Secrète after him. However, the facts of his first few decades in Canada suggest to me that his recognition should be equally prominent in Western Canada—an important region fueling today's art market and with a dearth of historical artists whose work celebrates the magnificence of the Western landscape of the generation of René Richard. Rarely titled by the artist, these woodsmen-trapper scenes are often of Western subject matter and are significant ethnographic paintings executed by a fine Canadian artist who himself was a former trapper and woodsman.