Antoine Plamondon


Antoine-Sébastien Plamondon was a Canadian artist in Quebec, who painted mainly portraits and religious images, the latter commissioned primarily by churches in and around Quebec City. As a young man, he had traveled to France and studied painting in Paris for four years, with such portraitists as Paulin Guérin.

Life

Plamondon was born in 1804 at L'Ancienne-Lorette, Quebec, the son of the village grocer and his wife. He went to school in Saint-Roch, a suburb of Quebec City, after which he was apprenticed to Joseph Légaré, a picture restorer and amateur painter.
In 1826 at the age of 22, Plamondon travelled to Paris, where he studied with classical portraitists such as Paulin Guérin. Works from this period are scarce.
In 1830, after the Louis-Philippe uprisings, Plamondon returned from France to Quebec. He specialized in portraits of living subjects. He also did religious paintings, generally based on engravings of Old Masters of Europe, a common practice among artists of his time. His portrait work was notable for his full-face, close-up, and tightly composed style, as well as a representation of the latest style of clothing. His later portraits showed more roundness in the modelling and far more space in the composition.
By 1850 Plamondon had moved to the country at Neuville, with his mother, a brother, and a sister. He lived there until the 1890s. Much of his work during this period were religious paintings, copies of Old Masters, commissioned by local churches. Plamondon's self-portrait of 1882 was probably his last work.
He was made a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. His works were exhibited by Galerie L'Art français.

Personal life

Plamondon never married. He was a lifelong monarchist and supporter of the Conservative Party, a friend of Sir George-Étienne Cartier and Sir Étienne Taché. He broke with the Conservatives over their execution in 1885 of Louis Riel, a Métis who fought for the rights of his people in Canada, a group now recognized as a First Nation by the national government. Plamondon died in Neuville in 1895.

Gallery