Sylvia Daoust, CM, CQ, born in Montreal, was one of the first female sculptors in Quebec. She studied at the Council of Arts & Manufactures and the École des Beaux-Arts, under Charles Maillard and Maurice Feliz, and later under Edwin Holgate at the Montreal Arts Association. She has won many notable prizes for her work, which has been exhibited in institutions in the United States, Italy, and Canada. She is known for her portrait sculptures, and for revitalizing the traditions of liturgical art. Daoust was also one of the original members of the organization Le Retable d’Art Sacre, a group that helped transform the state of Roman Catholic churches in French Canada. Daoust died in Montreal in 2004 at the age of 102.
Life and education
Daoust was born on May 24, 1902 in Montreal, Quebec the eldest of seven children. From an early age she began drawing, sketching, painting and also sculpting clay figurines. The figurines caught the eye of the Sisters of St. Anne, who encouraged her to enroll at the École des Beaux-Arts de Québec. In 1915, she began studying at the Conseil des arts et manufactures with Joseph Franchère, Joseph Saint-Charles et John Y. Johnstone In 1923, Daoust enrolled in the École des beaux arts, which had just recently opened. In 1927, she graduated with a specialized teaching degree in drawing. In 1929, Daoust won the Lord Willingdon Competition where she won the first-place prize in an inter-provincial competition for sculpture and in the same year received a scholarship to study in France from the province of Québec, where she studied with Henri Charlier. She returned home in 1930, teaching drawing, anatomy, modeling, and sculpting at the École des Beaux-Arts in Québec City until 1943. Daoust then moved back to Montreal to be a professor of wood and stone sculpting, where she remained until 1968. After his death in 2004, he was entombed at the Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery in Montreal.
Work
The majority of Daoust's works are religious in content and form. They have been described as a mixture between religious classicism and realism. While she did extensive work in the classroom, 1948 marked the beginning her career in profane art alongside fellow artist and peer, Paul-Émile Borduas. During the early 1940s movement of sacred art, she became acquainted with Dom Bello, the architect of Saint Benedict Abbey in Saint-Benoit-du-Lac, Québec. She put aside her pursuit of profane art and delves into scared art, with Dom Bellot in charge of Saint Joseph’s Oratory and working in collaboration with Henri Charlier and Sylvia Daoust. Her transition into sacred art was marked by the production of approximately thirty wooden statues, with Daoust adding accents of colour and experimenting with different materials such as aluminum and leather. She participated in over twenty exhibits and collectives, however much of her work was not displayed in art galleries. Daoust was one of the original founding members of Le Retable d’Art Sacre, an organization that advocated and pushed the standards of religious art within the Roman Catholic churches in Québec. She continued to sculpt into her 90s, where her last works were for the chapel of the Holy Cross Fathers in Montreal.
