Born in St. Cesaire, Quebec, Gervais studied both painting and sculpture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts of Montreal under Stanley Cosgrove and Jacques de Tonnancour (painting); Jean Simard, M. Marcotte, and S. Duquette (drawing); and under Louis Archambault (sculpture). She travelled to Europe in 1958 where she visited Spain and viewed particularly the drawings and paintings of Goya.
After a number of group shows in Quebec, Montreal, Trois-Rivières, Chicoutimi, Granby, Sherbrooke and Ottawa, she held her first solo show at Galerie Denyse Delrue, Montreal, in February of 1961; she exhibited there again in 1962 and in Toronto at the Moos Gallery. Viewing her paintings in 1964 Dorothy Pfeiffer commented, “. . . in spite of the amount in pounds of paint laid on her canvases, Gervais manages to suggest dimensions of space, depth, transparency, texture, and movement which are remarkable . . . colourful, stencil-like, paintings climb like exotic vines, or else soar like flights of birds of paradise. Everything moves, flies, rises, or flaps loudly in Gervais’ paintings. But nothing – absolutely nothing – flutters. In fact, the dominant note in her technique is ‘power,’ a power both authoritative and invigorating.”
Spanning a period of sixteen years during the 60's and 70's, she taught at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Montreal, at Universite du Quebec a Montreal, and at Concordia University. In 1967 she exhibited at the Musee National des Beaux-Arts du Quebec and also at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. In 1970 she had two other shows, one at the Musee d’Art Contemporain de Montreal and another in Paris at the Musee Rodin. In 1983-84, she was elected president of the Conseil des Artistes-Peintres du Quebec. Her works in the collections of Musee National des Beaux-Arts du Quebec, Queen’s University (Kingston) and the Albright Knox Museum (Buffalo, USA).
While living in Montreal, she spent most of her time in the solitude of the woods and lakes in the Laurentides, Quebec. She died at age 65.
Source: "A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, Volume II”, compiled by Colin S. MacDonald, Canadian Paperbacks Publishing Ltd, Ottawa, 1979
