Richard Lacroix, is an engraver, painter and sculptor born in Montreal, on July 14, 1939. He learned etching, lithography, serigraphy and wood engraving in Montreal with Albert Dumouchel in 1957.
From the age of 6, he was introduced to art.
“When I was very young, I was often in the moon and the thing that I especially liked was drawing. Fortunately my father listened to me and enrolled me at that age for Saturday classes at the Montreal School of Fine Arts, which was not common in 1945, “he said.
He received his diploma in 1959 from the Montreal Institute of Graphic Arts where he studied the various trades of printing and especially engraving with, among others and particularly with Albert Dumouchel, painter-engraver himself and renowned professor. Richard was also able to rub shoulders with artists from several disciplines and poets with whom he produced several albums of poetry and engravings.
He also studied at the Montreal School of Fine Arts and where he became a professor of engraving in 1960.
Thanks to a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts in 1961, he went to Paris, the time of the first contacts with inks, calligraphy and the philosophy of Chinese and Japanese Zen masters and where he studied with Stanley Hayter at Atelier 17. He learned the technique of polychromy on a plate, specific to this studio and unknown in Canada and which he will bring back to Quebec those inking techniques based on the differences in viscosity of the inks and the variation in consistency rollers used to apply them.
Back in Montreal in 1963, he founded the first free graphic research workshop. In 1964, Lacroix opened his own workshop and quickly attracted other artists eager to learn new techniques.
In 1964, with several artists, he created Fusion des arts in order to reflect the concerns of Quebec society in popular art in Quebec.
Subsequently, the “political activities” of Fusion des arts were the subject of close scrutiny and the police raided its offices. Also due to its political activities, Fusion des arts lost a collective order for Expo 67.
Eager to reach as many people as possible, he founded La Guilde Graphique in 1966 in order to arouse public interest by distributing engravings.
Lacroix provides, individually, a kinetic sculpture and produces a show as part of Expo 67.
Lacroix’s engravings often consist of extremely organized geometric shapes or else carefully orchestrated abstract shapes of a very high level of technicality. Lacroix, through his efforts, allowed Canadian engraving to be recognized and respected. Indeed, he was the first to develop polychrome in intaglio, he worked to impose engraving as an “original” work of art and tried to raise public awareness of the print media.
Winner of several awards and having participated in several international exhibitions and after promoting the print for over 50 years, Richard Lacroix was able to assemble a very beautiful and impressive collection of engravings.
In 1985, two exhibitions offered a retrospective of his works in Montreal, at the Musée du Québec and at the Galerie Estampe Plus.
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