Albert Dumouchel

Albert Dumouchel was born into a family of tradesmen at Bellerive, a working-class parish in the municipality of Valleyfield, Quebec. He was educated at the Séminaire Saint Thomas D'Aquin de Valleyfield, known today as the Collège de Valleyfield. From the age of 8, he studied violin and piano, as well as studying singing under Rodolphe Plamondon. From 1936 to 1949, he taught art classes at the Séminaire de Valleyfield.

In 1940, he became a textile designer at Montreal Cottons in Valleyfield. He also taught drawing, history of art, publicity and photography at the Institut des Arts graphiques which had just been founded in Montreal, Quebec, Canada (known today as Collège Ahuntsic). He set up an engraving workshop which became famous throughout Canada, and was its artistic director for many years.

A multi-talented individual, Dumouchel was a gifted musician, photographer and painter. His overall production was immense and included more than 2,078 works created during a career lasting over thirty years. Between 1947 and 1951, he published the series "Cahiers des ateliers des arts graphiques" in which can be found some of the great names in the history of art in Quebec, including Borduas and Pellan.

He was an excellent photographer and participated in the activities of the Montreal surrealists. In 1948, he signed the manifesto Prisme d'yeux and in March 1953, during an exhibition of paintings and drawings at the University of Vancouver, some sixty compositions on slides were exhibited. He also took part in important exhibitions around the world, including those in Paris, New York, Venice, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Tokyo, Berlin, Milan, Liège, Spoleto, Kraków, and Ottawa.

In 1955, Dumouchel was awarded an 18-month UNESCO scholarship to study in Europe, where he pursued his research and work on printmaking. In 1964, he was awarded membership of the Florentine Academy of Fine Arts and three years later, the Academy awarded him its centenary medal for serviced rendered to Canada.

In 1960, works by Dumouchel along with those of Edmund Alleyn, Graham Coughtry, Jean Paul Lemieux and Frances Loring represented Canada at the Venice Biennale.[1]

In 1967, he left his apartment/workshop in Montreal and went to live at St-Antoine-sur-le-Richelieu where he died in 1971.