Canadian Women Artists History Initiative : Artist Database : Artists : ROUSSEAU-VERMETTE, Mariette

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ROUSSEAU-VERMETTE, Mariette

Born: Trois-Pistoles, Quebec, 1926
Died: Montreal, Quebec, 2006
Biography synopsis: Textile artist Mariette Rousseau-Vermette gained international recognition for her large modernist abstract tapestries. After completing studies at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Quebec in 1948, she moved to San Francisco to work in the studio of Dorothy Liebes and attend the California College of Arts and Crafts. On returning to Montreal in 1949 she designed textiles for commercial companies and subsequently worked with modernist artists Fernand Leduc and Jean-Paul Mousseau as well as the Automatistes in the mid-50s. While she initially used wool produced by craft workers in Quebec, she would incorporate new materials and technologies throughout her career. From 1979 to 1985, she was Head of the Fibre Arts program at the Banff Centre. In addition to solo and group exhibitions in the late 1960s at the Museum of Modern Art and the Art Gallery of Ontario, she participated at Biennales in Lausanne (1962, 1965, 1967). Vermette-Rousseau undertook large scale commissions including the Eisenhower Theatre curtain in the Kennedy Center (Washington), the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, and Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto. In 1978 she was invited to be the advisor and guest curator of Canada Mikrokosma in London, England, which included twenty-two contemporary textile artists from across Canada. Her works are held in the National Gallery of Canada, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MOMA, and the Museum of Modern Art (Kyoto). She was a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts, and in 1976 she was named an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 1991 the 6th Annual Biennial of Contemporary Tapestry in Montreal included an homage to her. In 1995 she was invited to produce a work for the show “Fiber: Five Decades from the Collection of the American Craft Museum.” At the end of her career Vermette-Rousseau also explored emerging technologies including optical fibre for the exhibition “Fiber Optic: Weavings and Wire Sculpture 2001.”
Media used: Tapestry; Textiles
Education: Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Quebec, 1944 - 1948 (under Jean Dallaire, Irene Beaudin (technician)); California College of Arts and Crafts (Oakland)
File & Archive locations: Art Gallery of Ontario - Edward P. Taylor Research Library and Archives; Artexte Information Centre, QC - Documentation Centre; London Public Library, ON; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts / Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, QC; Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, QC - Media Centre; Edmonton Art Gallery, AB - Library; National Gallery of Canada, ON - Library and Archives; University of British Columbia - Fine Arts Library; University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections; Winnipeg Art Gallery, MA - Clara Lander Library; Vancouver Art Gallery, BC - Library
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Writings about; Mariette Rousseau-Vermette. Wilton, CT: Brown/Grotta Gallery, 1992; Métier d'art 3: Exposition préparée par le Centre culturel canadien en collaboration avec Mariette Rousseau-Vermette. Paris: Le Centre, 1979; "Four Artists picked as Finalists for Saidye Bronfman Award." Canadian Jewish News Oct 28 1999; "L'art de l'evolution artistique au Quebec." Le Devoir 23 Feb 1961; "Rousseau-Vermette Tapestries." The Gazette (Montreal 23 May 1964; Aarons, Anita. "What is a Wall?" Architecture Canada (RAIC) 46.09 (Oct. 1969): 10-12; Alfoldy, Sandra. Crafting Identity: The Development of Professional Fine Craft in Canada. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2005; Alfoldy, Sandra. The Allied Arts: Architecture and Craft in Postwar Canada Montreal, Quebec: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2012; Alfoldy, Sandra. "Excellence, Inventiveness, and Variety: Canadian Fine Crafts at Expo 67." Made in Canada: Craft and Design in the Sixties. Ed. A. Elder. Montreal, Quebec: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2005; Berger, René and Thévoz, Michel. 5ième Biennale Internationale de la tapisserie. Lausanne, Suisse: Centre International de la Tapisserie Ancienne et Moderne, 1971; Bernatchez, M., Harvey Perrier, G., and E Levesque. La Tapisserie. Montréal: France Amerique, 1979; Biron, Normand. Paroles de l'art. Montreal, Quebec: Éditions Québec/Amérique, 1988; Bourgault, Pierre. "Le tissage: de l'artisanat a l'art." La Presse (Magazine 23 May 1963; Canada. Department of External Affairs. Cultural Affairs. La Tapisserie canadienne contemporaine: Exposition/Canadian Contemporary Tapestry: Exhibition Ottawa, Ontario: Ministrère des approvisionnements et services Canada, 1980; Cloutier-Cournoyer, Françoise and Morin, Marie-Paule. Québec Tapestries: Works from the First Biennial of the Québec New Tapestry. Montréal, Quebec: Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, 1979; Cloutier-Cournoyer, Françoise.. La Nouvelle Tapisserie québécoise. Montréal, Quebec: Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, 1978; Constantine, Mildred. Ombre et lumière: Tapisseries de Mariette Rousseau-Vermette / Light and Shadow : Tapestries by Mariette Rousseau-Vermette Saint-Lambert, Quebec: Musée Marsil, 1984, 1984; Constantine, Mildred and Jack Lenor Larsen. The Art Fabric: Mainstream New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1981; Couture, Francine, et al.. Les Arts visuels au Québec dans les années soixante: La Reconnaissance de la modernité. Montréal, Quebec: VLB Éditeur, 1993; Delgado, Jerome. "Dans le rétroviseur de la modernité." Le Devoir 24 Dec. 2015: E6
http://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/4213150?docpos=6; Eberhard Cotton, Giselle. "The Lausanne International Tapestry Biennials (1962-1995)." The Handbook of Textile Culture, edited by Janis Jeffries et al. London, England: Bloomsbury, 2016; Gaudreau, Louise, et al.. Code d'éthique des artistes en arts textiles Montreal, Quebec: CATQ/Conseil des arts textiles du Québec, 1994; Hardy, Michele et al.. Prairie Interlace: Weavings, Modernisms and the Expanded Frame. Calgary, Alberta: Phillips Gallery, Fall 2023; Heller, Jules and Nancy. North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century. New York: Garland, 1995.; Jarry, Madeleine. La Tapisserie: Art du 20e siécle. Fribourg: Office du livre, 1974; Johnson, Jean, Vollmer, John E. and M. Constantine. Three Canadian Fibre Artists : Gregor, Rousseau-Vermette, Staniszkis. Windsor, Ontario: Art Gallery of Windsor, 1981; Leighton, David and Leighton, Peggy. Artists, Builders and Dreamers-50 Years at the Banff School. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1982; Létourneau, Lise Régimbald, Manon, and DanielleCroteau. Conseil des Arts textiles du Québec: Répertoire. Montréal, Quebec: CATQ/Conseil des arts textiles du Québec, 1998; Massé, Ginette. Tapisseries québécoises contemporaines. Québec: Québec: Musée du Québec, 1977; Murphy, Serge and Viau, René. Ateliers croisés: Artisans de la modernité québécoise / Two Ways-Studios : Crafters of Québec Modernity. Baie-Saint-Paul, Qc: Musée d'art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul, 1970; Newlands, Ann. Weaving Modernist Art: The Life and Work of Mariette Rousseau-Vermette, Richmond Hill, Ontario: Firefly Books, 2023; Newlands, Anne. "Mariette Rousseau-Vermette, Textile Artist: The Quiet Revolution and Art Integrated with Architecture." Modernisms, Inside & Out: The Fourth Conference of the Canadian Women Artists History Initiative. Toronto: 30 Sep. - 2 Oct. 2021,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfEoOSkbsw4; Newlands, Anne. "Mariette Rousseau-Vermette: Journey of a Painter-weaver from the 1940s through the 1960s." Journal of Canadian Art History 32.2 (2011): 74-107; Ouvrard, Helene. Mariette Rousseau-Vermette: La Tapisserie murale Montreal, Quebec: Éditions Formart, 1972; Picard, Rene. "Le Groupe de la Place Royale: la recherche dansée." Vie des Arts 19.77 (Winter 1974-75): 51-53
http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/55144ac; Plume, Vita, et al.. Textiles sismographes: Symposium Fibres et Textiles 1995 Montreal, Quebec: CATQ/Conseil des arts textiles du Québec, 1995; Robert, Guy. L'Art au Québec depuis 1940. Montreal: La Presse, 1973; Robert, Guy. "Mariette Vermette: Symphonies en Laines et Couleurs." Vie desarts, (36), 18–25. Vie des Arts 36 (Fall 1964): 18-25
http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/58455ac; Rosshandler, Léo, et al.. Sixième Biennale de Tapisserie contemporaine de Montréal, 1990. Société québécoise de la tapisserie contemporaine, 1991; Rousseau-Vermette, Mariette. La Tapisserie murale: Mariette Rousseau-Vermette. Montréal, Quebec: Éditions Formar, 1973; Shaul, S.. "Paris: The Canadian Cultural Centre." Art Magazine (Canada) 6.20 (1975): 30-31; Stabb Jo Ann C et al.. Retro. Wilton, Conn.: Browngrotta 2012., 2012; Steinbert-Kraut, E et al. . Actuelles I. Montréal, Quebec: Air Canada, 1983; Villeneuve, Paquerette. "La Palette de Rousseau-Vermette." Vie des Arts 29.117 (Dec. 1984): 49
http://www.erudit.org/en/journals/va/1984-v29-n117-va1170300/54203ac/

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ROUSSEAU-VERMETTE, Mariette

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