Michel LeRoux (1950 –)

Michel Le Roux was born into a family in which creativity was both a preferred means of expression and a way of life. Le Roux’s father, a lettering artist, often sought his son’s assistance, and thus introduced a young Le Roux to the world of art.

Le Roux became a professor at the Institut des Arts Graphiques de Montréal, where he taught his students the principles of perspective and calligraphy. After three years he founded an advertising agency; however, he soon realized that something important was missing from his artistic life, and identified this void as one that could be filled by oil painting.

From 1983 onwards, Le Roux focused on developing his painting full time. He was fascinated with the plant world and strived to convey on canvas the emotions he felt while deep in the forest. In painting after painting, he strived to purify his subject and pare it down to the very essence: the intrinsic characteristic of nature.

Le Roux’s first exhibition occurred in 1985 as part of the fifth Festival International des Arts de Montréal. It was an incredible success; collectors responded very favourably, which motivated Le Roux to meet the demand for his work.

Since 1986, Le Roux has presented twenty-six solo exhibitions throughout Canada and the United States. In 1992, Les Editions Broquet published a book covering the first period of his pictorial development. A few years later, to support the intrigue of the bestseller A Cry in the Night by American novelist Mary Higgins Clark, Telescene Film Group Inc. selected twenty-one of his paintings for a feature film co-produced by France, the United States, and Canada. In 2004, as a fully mature artist, he was featured in a second book that presented one hundred and twelve of his works with supporting biographical text.

More than thirty years into his professional career, Le Roux’s works can be found in prominent Canadian collections including the Bank of Montreal, Bell Multimedia, CTV, CIBC-Wood Gundy, Crédit Industriel Desjardins, Devries Financial, Foothills Pipeline Ltd., Investors Group, Maritime Life Insurance Company, Microsoft, Midland Walwyn Capital, the Royal Canadian Mint, and ScotiaMcLeod.