Fauteux, Claire, 1890-1988 : Marie Claire Christine Fauteux, portraitist, landscape painter, muralist, decorative painter and Professor of Fine Arts, was born on 23 September 1890 in Montreal, the daughter of Charles Gustave Fauteux and Henriette Julie Panet (the granddaughter of Jean-Antoine Panet, first Speaker of the Legislative Assembly for Lower Canada). Claire Fauteux received her early education at Miss Marclay's School in the Ursuline Convent at Quebec City and she subsequently began her artistic studies at the Art Association of Montreal in about 1907, where she studied under the tutelage of William Brymner and, during two summers, with Maurice Cullen. During this time she also came into contact with the artists Robert Pilot and Arthur Lismer.
Claire Fauteux first exhibited her work with the Art Association of Montreal regularly from 1912 to 1929, and again in 1946 and 1947. She also exhibited at the Royal Canadian Academy beginning in 1916, and on four other occasions up to 1947. In 1913 she was awarded a three-year scholarship from the Women's Art Society of Montreal for art studies at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and she subsequently exhibited with other Montreal artists at the Saint-Sulpice Library in 1916-1917.
In 1920, after teaching in New York for a time, Fauteux left for Europe in the company of Emily Coonan, another Montreal artist who was associated with the Beaver Hall Hill group of women painters. After travels in Belgium and Italy she became a student at the Academy Julian in Paris for three months, studying "miniature" and "painting." During her first year in Paris the artist decorated some well-known restaurants such as "Roi Dagobert." In 1921 she won the bursary of the Women's Art Society in Montreal as well as that of France's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, enabling her to continue her studies in Paris for another two years. In 1924 Fauteux exhibited some forty canvases at the Marsan Gallery in Paris, where she was favourably reviewed by several French newspapers. At this exhibition the Quebec Provincial government acquired her major work "Golden Autumn." The following year (1925) she exhibited her work at the Ainslie Gallery in New York, where her canvases sold out and where she was favourably reviewed by the "New York Times."
During the time period covering c.1925-c.1936 Fauteux spent most of her time in Europe, with occasional visits home to Canada. The French artist Maurice Denis critiqued her work for two years, she spent time working in Rome in 1927, and she began an eleven-year employment with the Public Archives of Canada in Paris, producing several documentary works for the Canadian government. The Quebec painter Henri Beau was also employed by the Public Archives of Canada in Paris at this time, so it may be assumed that the two artists knew one another. Some time in 1934 Fauteux painted a mural in the dining room of the Cercle Universitaire in Montreal, and that same year held an exhibition of her works in her native city. Near the end of the 1930s she obtained a long-sought position at the Canadian Embassy in Paris, and she chose to stay even after the German invasion of France during the Second World War. Inevitably events in Paris caught up with her, and on 5th December 1940, early in the morning, she was arrested by the Gestapo and taken, with many other foreign nationals, to the internment camps at Besançon, and later at Vittel in eastern France for a period of six months. Fauteux's experiences of her internment and later residence in German-occupied Paris are detailed in her book "Fantastic Interlude," published in 1961 and illustrated with her own drawings. Fauteux's illustrations also appear in the book "Les habits rouges [et] La nuit de Noël du capitaine Allen" by Robert de Roquebrune (1930).
Fauteux returned to North America at the end of November 1944, well after the liberation of Paris, returning to Montreal via New York. Remaining in Quebec she exhibited work at the Montmorency Gallery, and at La Galerie L'Art Francais and with the Royal Canadian Academy of Art in 1947. From 1947 onwards Fauteux taught oil painting and watercolour painting at the Ecole des Beaux Arts de Montreal, and each week taught an introductory art course at the municipal library of St. Jérome. In 1969 she had an exhibition of her work at the Cultural Centre of Verdun.
Claire Fauteux died in Montreal on 8th July 1988 at the age of 97. During her lifetime she was a popular artist who was described as having a poetic sense, imagination, and a talent for illustration.
