On Thursday, May 2nd, Galerie Walter Klinkhoff will be opening an exhibition and sale of works by Claude A. Simard. This exhibition and sale will be posted on klinkhoff.com at approximately 12pm, with works on view at the gallery. We invite you to purchase one of these outstanding compositions by the master. Please note that all works are subject to prior sale.

 

Claude A. Simard was born in Quebec City in 1943. He studied Graphic Design at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto. He worked as a Graphic Designer until 1984 and from then on, he devoted all his time to painting and teaching. Simard left a distinguished career at Laval University where he had been a tenured professor in the Communication and Design Program. Claude A. Simard paintings are exhibited for sale in fine galleries across Canada. He has created eight stamps for Canada Post. The community of owners of Simard paintings from our gallery and other important fine art galleries includes primarily art collectors across Canada and also the United States, the United Kingdom, Western Europe, and some as far away as Asia including Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur. Claude A. Simard is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Art since 1983, one of the founding members of the Quebec Graphic Designers Society, and since 1977 a member of the New York Society of Illustrators.

 

 

About Claude A. Simard:

"The private garden, with all its flowers, is a hallowed place, full of life, a unique framework to feel matter, to revel in the changing patterns of light, to celebrate the passing of time and of seasons. Simard's sources of inspiration, his strongest emotions, flow from the heart of his daily, ordinary environment, in the magnificent world created by a piece of sky surrounded by tree tops."1 "Nature which stimulates him, to which he must turn for inspiration, actually affords him the opportunity to experiment with forms, to make colours vibrate and to capture light. A familiar object such as a flower pot on a window sill gives him all the latitude he needs to express joy, freedom, and emotion. Colours, the very symbol of life and hope, then take on magic meanings in Simard's paintings, simple in terms of their subject but complex in their contrasting colours.

 

Whatever the subject: his indoor plants, scenes in his garden or scenes from outside his immediate environment, Simard doesn't simply make photographic reproductions of geraniums, tulips and zinnias: he wants to put on canvas what he feels when he looks at them. So that looking at a painting and seeing lush vegetation, protected from the rigors of Winter in a warm room, one not only senses the powers of the sun shining through the windows but also senses that these flowers say something of a man's quest for eternity."2 "Simard's work deserves more than a passing glance. It's an adventure, an invitation to dream and ponder. His thoughts, his conception of art, help to appreciate his work. Go along with him and share his search for freedom and strong emotions."3

 

Claude A. Simard, in his own words:

"The observation of life has inspired me as an artist for the past 40 years. Call me a realist if you need categories. Some think figurative painting is a reactionary form of art. I believe the artistic value of artwork depends on the personal approach of the artist and on the emotional charge of the work, whatever the subject matter. I believe Beauty is the essence of art. I believe the art is more important than the artist can ever be. At 19, I was lucky enough to be admitted at the Ontario College of art where I received instructions from masters such as Franklin Arbuckle, Alan Collier and Gray Mills. They helped us look at subject matter and feel the emotion it brought. They demanded honesty and passion in the most simple of sketches. I became an artist. The important thing in life is to go where you want to go, choosing the road you wish to travel. I spend my days in the studio. My schedule is everybody's schedule. I work during the day and sleep at night. One gets much better light that way. So much for the romantic idea projected on the movie screen about the life of the artist. In art, nothing matters but the object one creates with his hands. Art dominates words about art."4

 

Claude A. Simard, Quotes by the Artist

"Home is wherever I sit with pen and paper. Scribble, scribble...".5 "Inspiration is the sum of everything that comes from outside and feeds our inner life."6 "As it turns out in the end, we only tell about ourselves through the paintings we paint, through the stories we tell. As it was in childhood, life is the only source of inspiration. What you paint is what you are. Subject matter is conditioned by what we know. People we love. Places where we spend our time. Moments of joy and moments of sorrow. Life! So fast. So short."7

 

Footnotes:

1 André Juneau, Claude A. Simard, Les presses de l'Université Laval, Sainte-Foy, 1991

2 ibid

3 ibid

4 Claude A. Simard, Inspiration, Éditions Multiplart Inc., 2011

5 ibid

6 ibid

7 ibid

 

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