Jump to content

Nicholas Raphael de Grandmaison

Edit links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Dexbot (talk | contribs) at 01:52, 19 May 2020 (Bot: Aligning section names with MOS:SECTIONS). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Nicholas Raphael de Grandmaison
Born1892
Moscow, Russia
Died1978
Known forPortraits
SpouseSonia de Grandmaison
AwardsOrder of Canada

Nicholas Raphael de Grandmaison (1892–1978) was a Russian-born Canadian artist.

Early Life

Grandmaison was born in Moscow to noble French and Russian parents.[citation needed] From a young age, he was interested in painting and the fine arts, but his career took another path when he received a commission in the White Russian army, prior to the Russian Revolution. However, from 1914 on, while in a German prison camp he started making portraits. Afterwards he decided to pursue an education in the arts and travelled to study art in London and Paris, before settling to Canada in 1923. Although he studied oil painting, he used pastels after his move as they were easier to obtain in Canada during that time.[1]

Life in Canada

On September 19, 1931, he married Sonia de Grandmaison (née Sonia Dournovo), another Russian artist living in Canada. Sonia was born in 1912 in Russia, and was the daughter of Colonel Orest Dournovo and Alexandra Berdiaeff, who had immigrated to Canada after the Russian Revolution. Nicholas and Sonia decided to settle in Calgary, where they made their living painting portraits of children. But soon they both became interested in characterization, which developed into a lifelong study of the First Nations in Canada and America. They started to travel more to various reserves and reservations across North America in order for Nicholas to paint, but in 1939 made their home in Banff.[2]

Achievements

By the end of his life, Nicholas R. de Grandmaison was an associate member of the Royal Canadian Academy, spoke several First Nations' languages, and was invested as a member of the Order of Canada in 1972. Through his work and his art, Grandmaison captured an important era of Canadian and American history, and is considered a prominent visual historian in Canada; his work is represented in numerous public and private art collections throughout North America.[3][4]

References

  1. ^ Currie, Rod (October 6, 1982). "Grandmaison portraits capture Indian's sorrow". The Ottawa Citizen.
  2. ^ "de Grandmaison Family Exhibition". No. Vol. 2, No.2. The Peter Whyte Foundation. The cairn. Winter 1977–78. {{cite news}}: |issue= has extra text (help)
  3. ^ Hustak, Atan (October 18, 1982). "Russian-born de Grandmaison found nobility on Alberta's reserves". Alberta Report.
  4. ^ "Chief Walking Buffalo art donated to Banff museum". Calgary Herald. 2015-04-15. Archived from the original on 2016-03-24. Retrieved 2017-08-31.

Further reading

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nicholas_Raphael_de_Grandmaison&oldid=957476612"