After attending the École d’Arts et Métiers de Valleyfield, Maurice Lemieux (1931–94) produced his first sculptures in the 1950s. He participated in the Madrid Biennale in 1957 and created an imposing wall sculpture for the Séminaire Saint-Jean-Iberville (today CÉGEP Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu) in 1961. Between 1964 and 1971, he lived in Los Angeles, where he developed a new material that he called “aluminum foam.” In the early 1980s, he created Calcite, a permanent artwork for the De la Savane Métro station in Montréal.
Artwork description
In 1975, architects Dupuis and Mathieu invited sculptor Maurice F. Lemieux to create a large exterior work, located above the entrance to École Champlain. The artists created a wall sculpture, an art medium he was using at the time, although he is better known for his three-dimensional sculptures. This piece is composed of three large painted-steel shapes attached to a rough, unfinished concrete wall.