The Life and Art of Jean McEwen
Born in Montreal, Canada, Jean McEwen began his professional life as a pharmacist, earning a degree from the University of Montreal in 1947. Following the positive reception of his first exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 1949, he left his pharmacy career to travel to Paris. During his time in Europe, he was introduced to painters such as Jean-Paul Riopelle, Georges Mathieu, and Sam Francis, and he visited museums in Italy, Holland, and Spain. Upon returning to Montreal in 1953, he became committed to non-figurative art, a path that led him to become a member and eventually the last president of The Non-Figurative Artists Association of Montreal.
Technique and Recognition
McEwen was a self-taught painter known for his lyrical abstraction. In his mature works, he utilized an allover field composition often bisected by a central vertical, employing varied ways of handling pigment. He applied paint with either a brush or a palette knife to create a rich impasto surface, using many layers of pigment to achieve an effect of luminosity and shimmering light. His work is held in several prestigious collections, including:
Throughout his career, he was a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and served as a professor at Concordia University. His artistic contributions include murals and glass windows, and he was honored with the Prix Paul-Émile-Borduas from the Government of Quebec.
