Monique "Mo" Harvey (1950–2001) was a Canadian painter who lived and worked in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

Biography

Monique Harvey was born in a popular neighbourhood on Notre-Dame Street in

. She was pursuing photography when, at the age of 28, a simple painting class intended to relax her work led to her true vocation. Harvey then took drawing and painting classes, which led toward a Certificate of Fine Arts from the

University of Sherbrooke A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...

in 1980. Nevertheless, Harvey considered that her approach was largely self-taught. In 1983 Harvey participated in a first group exhibition at the Old Port of Montréal, where she stood out as a talented and charismatic artist. In 1984 her work was exhibited at the International Arts Festival held at the

Palais des congrès de Montréal The Palais des congrès de Montréal is a convention centre in Montreal's Quartier international at the north end of Old Montreal. Its borough is Ville-Marie. Construction began in 1977 and completed in 1983; the Palais opened on 21 May 1983 ...

, at an exhibition of seven painters at the Old Presbytery of Saint-Bruno, and an exhibition at the Mont-Tremblant Festival of Colours where Harvey won the Montréal Businessmen's Award. In 1986 she had a solo exhibition at the Maison d'art Saint-Laurent and in a duo at the Galerie Bernard Larocque in

Rimouski Rimouski ( ; ) is a city in Quebec, Canada. Rimouski is located in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region, at the mouth of the Rimouski River. It has a population of 48,935 (as of 2021). Rimouski, whose motto is ''Legi patrum fidelis'' (Faithful to ...

. In 1987, she exhibited as a group at the L'Heureux Gallery in

Trois-Rivières Trois-Rivières (, ; ) is a city in the Mauricie administrative region of Quebec, Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Saint-Maurice River, Saint-Maurice and Saint Lawrence River, Saint Lawrence rivers, on the north shore of the Sain ...

and then as a solo artist at the Galerie L'Autre Equivoque in Ottawa. In October 1987 she held a major solo exhibition at the Minigal Gallery in Montréal. In 1989 Harvey exhibited at the Whitten Gallery, at the Hollander York Gallery in Toronto, and contributed to the exhibition ''Les Femmes peintres au Québec'' (English: Women Painters in Quebec) at the Marc-Aurèle-Fortin Museum (closed 2007) in Montreal (June to September). This museum then invited Harvey to present a retrospective of her works of the past four years. Harvey continued solo and group shows through the 1990s. This included frequent exhibitions at the Lydia Monaro Art Galleries in Montréal, St-Laurent+Hill in Ottawa, Hollander York Gallery in Toronto, Masters Gallery in Calgary, and Loch & Mayberry in Winnipeg. Group exhibitions included SNBA/MAGAZIN'ART Biennale at the

Grand Palais The (; ), commonly known as the , is a historic site, exhibition hall and museum complex located in the 8th arrondissement of Paris between the Champs-Élysées and the Seine, France. Construction of the began in 1897 following the demolitio ...

in Paris in 1993, Old Palais Exhibition Center in Saint-Jérôme in 1992–1994, Bali at the Canadian Embassy in Jakarta in 1994, Musée Marc-Aurèle Fortin in Montréal in 1995, the group exhibition ''Les Femmeuses at Longueuil'' in 1996, and ''Entre deux chaises'' (Between Two Chairs) at the

Montréal Museum of Fine Arts The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) is an art museum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the list of largest art museums in the world, largest art museum in Canada by gallery space. The museum is located on the historic Golden Square Mile stre ...

in 1998. Monique Harvey fell ill with cancer and died 8 November 2001 at the age of 51. She left behind a vibrant pictorial heritage, abundant in colour and form, showing great sensitivity.

Works

Monique Harvey was an artist bubbling with ideas, who ended up finding her own style. Always with new subjects, she gave free rein to her imagination and worked in a very impulsive way. For Harvey, subjects matter little: she improvises each painting as a space built through distortions and disproportions that create their own harmony, creating order in the apparent mess that often furnishes her compositions. Guy Robert (1933–2000), founder in 1964 of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Montréal and author of several monographs on the painters who marked Quebec, said of her in 1987 that ''"la relève la plus dynamique et la plus solide devrait ressembler à cela"'' ("the most dynamic and the most dynamic succession should look like this").

References

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Bibliography

* * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Harvey, Monique 1950 births 2001 deaths Painters from Montreal 20th-century Canadian painters 20th-century Canadian women painters