Yvonne Bolduc. Sculptor. Painter. Baie-Saint-Paul, Charlevoix County, Quebec.

Yvonne Bolduc was born and grew up in Baie-St.-Paul in Quebec’s Charlevoix County. Largely self taught; Yvonne Bolduc learned wood carving from her father, made many of her early canvases from Burlap and most of her early paints from ‘as found’ materials including earth pigments and vegetable dyes found in the fields and gardens of the Charlevoix County country-side..

Yvonne Bolduc drew her inspiration from traditional Quebec scenes, the beautiful Charlevoix County and Quebec novels. ‘Maria Chapdelaine’ by Louis Hemon and ‘Un homme et son peche’ by Claude-Henri Grignon are among the best known influences. Yvonne Bolduc worked her images in ‘Seed Paintings” (literally sculpting the image in seeds and coloring them). And in paintings on hand made canvas (using Burlap) using her own hand-made oils and watercolors. Mlle Bolduc also carved in wood (Eastern White Pine), creating incredibly beautiful deep relief sculptures, some up to six feet long by two feet wide. The last are some of Quebec’s finest wood carvings as you will see in the examples shown below the article.

Yvonne Bolduc is one of Quebec’s most important naive artists of the 20th century. She was multi-disciplined, multi-talented and possessed a remarkable vision in all of them. Her sister was the painter Blanche Bolduc.