Picher, Claude

Technique : Oil, pastel, etching, watercolour, gouache

Claude Picher was born in 1927 in Quebec. He studied at the National School of Fine Arts of Quebec from 1945 to 1946, under Jean-Paul Lemieux. He then studied at the New School of Social Research in New York from 1947 to 1948. He received a scholarship from the French Government and studied at the Louvre as well as at the National Superior School of Fine Arts from 1948 to 1949. In 1958, he studied with the Salvador Dali Foundation at the Bryn Mawr University in Pennsylvania; he then studied in Mexico City.

From 1950 to 1958, he was the Exhibit Director at the Quebec Museum of Fine Arts; he then worked as a representative at the Eastern Quebec Gallery of Fine Arts from 1958 through 1962. During 1963 and 1964, he worked as the assistant director of the Quebec Fine Arts Museum.

He began painting full time in 1964. He represented Canada in 1973, at the 5th Biannual Exhibit of Canadian Painting held at the Commonwealth Institute in London, England. In 1979, he participated in four exhibits in London, Paris, Madrid, and in Düsseldorf with the Firestone Collection. His final exhibits were held at the Balcon Art Gallery in Saint-Lambert in 1988 and at the Christine Gallery in Toronto in 1989.

Collections

• Canadian National Gallery
• Quebec Museum of Fine Arts
• National Bank of Canada
• Lines and Travel Insurance de Zurich
• and many others

Distinctions

• 1941-1946 - First Prize for Drawing and Painting at the Quebec Provincial Exhibit 
• 1956 - First Prize at the Spring Exhibit held at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
• 1958 - First Canadian Artist to obtain a scholarship from the Salvador Dali Foundation at the Bryn Mawr University in Pennsylvania
• In 1960, he became a member of the Canadian Royal Academy of Arts (Associated member in 1973)
• 1962 - He represented Canada at the second Biannual Exhibit in Paris