Duo-deu by Charles Daudelin

Born in Granby, Quebec, he studied under Paul-Emile Borduas at the Applied Arts Institute of Montreal (1941-43), with Fernand Léger in New York (1943-44) and in Paris on a Quebec Government Scholarship to work with Léger and Henri Laurens (1946-48). Guy Viau described him in his student days and in later years, as follows, “. . . one of the most picturesque representatives of the art-student tribe in Montreal; a huge, bearded fellow, debonair, irritable, a devotee of the bohemian and the bizarre, popular for his profound naiveté and his gift of sympathy. At the age of twenty-two or twenty-three he held a retrospective show which was rich in promise . . . After a long absence devoted to his farm, to various crafts, to a thousand trades, he has in recent years returned to painting and sculpture. Now mature, master of his technique, he is free and can dream. He mulls over a rich material which suggests glow and sumptuousness; he frees creatures of his imagination which reveal his skill and spirit. Daudelin can be truly enchanting.”

From 1943 to 1963 Daudelin held solo and group exhibitions of oil paintings, watercolours, drawings, ceramic sculptures, marionettes, jewelry and in collaboration with architects carried out commissions for murals, reliefs, sculptures and also made toys. From 1963 to 1967 he did mainly decorations and articles for worship for Saint-Jean Church, Mtl.; decorations for the Arena Maurice-Richard in Montreal; for St. Thomas Church in St. Lambert he did murals in concrete; aluminum reliefs for the Montreal subway and other commissions. During 1966 and 1967 he completed a fountain sculpture in cast iron (12 tons) for the City Hall in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, and the sculpture for the Museum of Contemporary Art of Montreal in cast bronze, and sculptures in cast bronze for the theatre at Place des Arts in Montreal. In 1967 he did a sculpture for Expo 67 in cast bronze. In 1966 he also completed a sculpture for the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, located on the south terrace facing Slater Street. This work harmonizes beautifully with the general shape of the building and at night casts its tree-shaped shadow against the south wall of the Centre.

Daudelin is represented in the National Gallery of Canada, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Musée d’art contemporary, Montreal, and the Musée du Québec. He lived in Montreal where he was a professor of Integrated Arts at the École des Beaux-Arts, Montreal.

Sources: "A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, Volume I: A-F", compiled by Colin S. MacDonald, Canadian Paperbacks Publishing Ltd, Ottawa, 1977