Biography
Francine Simonin is an important artist and an icon of Quebec expressionism. During an impressive career that spanned nearly five decades, she was a much-celebrated printmaker, engraver, and painter. Her work was inspired by literature, music, the human body, and landscapes.
Simonin was born in Lausanne, Switzerland on October 2, 1936. She began her artistic studies at the Ecole Cantonale des Beaux-art in Lausanne in the early 1950’s concentrating on both painting and drawing. While in Europe, she traveled extensively and met artists and poets who greatly influenced her work. Perhaps her most significant relationship was with the French writer Marguerite Duras who would become one of the most important literary figures in France.
In the fifties and sixties Simonin worked alongside the gifted printer Raymond Meyer. By the 1960’s she received her first of many scholarships and a year later staged her first exhibition. In 1968 she received a scholarship from the Canada Council for the Arts which introduced her to artists in Quebec. She moved to Montreal in the 1970s and interned at the famed Atelier Graff and taught at various schools including the University of Québec à Trois-Rivières. Simonin is credited with teaching a whole generation of young artists techniques in engraving and contemporary printmaking. During this time she also maintained a workshop in Switzerland.
Simonin won many awards and distinctions during her career. In October 2004, the Musée National des Beaux-arts du Québec and the Fondation Monique and Robert Parizeau presented her with an award recognizing her exceptional contribution to the history of printmaking in Quèbec. Simonin also completed several noteworthy public commissions including the Palais de Justice de Longueuil, several Pavilions at Laval University in Quebec City, and at the Auditorium in Montreux, Switzerland. She participated in nearly 200 solo and group exhibitions around the world.
Her artworks can be found in numerous museum and private collections, such as the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, and in Ottawa--the National Gallery of Canada, the Canada Council Art Bank, the National Library of Canada, and the Council of Europe Art Bank Arts of Canada.
Francine Simonin died in Montreal at the age of 84 on October 9, 2020.
