Yvette Bisson studied at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal (1942-1947) and at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ School of Art and Design from 1954 to 1956. In 1961, along with Yves Trudeau, she founded the Association des Sculpteurs du Québec, serving as secretary for several years. She also co-founded the stone sculpture school at the Saidye Bronfman Centre, where she taught sculpture from 1963 to 1971. In addition, she has taught at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal, at the Université du Québec à Montréal and at Collège Saint-Louis-Maillet in Edmundston, New Brunswick, where she settled in 1970. Along with Françoise Sullivan, Bisson is considered one of the pioneers of new sculpture in Quebec. Beginning in 1964, she exhibited her work in the gardens of the Hélène de Champlain restaurant on Île Sainte-Hélène; these included pieces that she called “cosmotomes,” such as Absolu et matière, cosmotome #2 (1961-1962), which was made from marble and ebony wood. Featuring very basic lines, the sculpture comprised two elements of contrasting, even opposing, movement, form, material and colour: a shaft of wood passing through the centre of a hard, round block of polished marble. In 1967, Bisson produced her first “architectome,” a kind of model building for a utopian city that, like her sculptures, expressed a claim to elevation and the absolute. She is a recipient of the Miller-Brittain Prize for her contribution to the development of the visual arts in New Brunswick through her artwork and teaching.
SEE:
« Histoires de sculpt(e)ure » by Rose Marie Arbour, ESPACE, vol. 4 #3, p. 5.
« Laboratoire – cage – couleurs 3D » by Luc A. Charette, ESPACE, vol. 5 #4, p. 14.
« Vitalité et pluralisme—La sculpture des années cinquante au Québec : Le travail de Anne Kahane et Suzanne Guité » by Joyce Millar, ESPACE #22, p. 23.
«La part féminine du désir » by Marie Carani, ESPACE #23, p. 13.
« Nouvelles pratiques sculpturales : Yvette Bisson, Françoise Sullivan » by Rose Marie Arbour, ESPACE #25, p. 17.
« From One September to Another » by Serge Fisette, ESPACE #61, p. 5.
