BENOÎT, Jean (1922-2010)

Jean Benoît studied at the École des beaux-arts de Québec and, in 1942, at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal. He took courses with Alfred Pellan, who introduced him to Surrealism and the game known as exquisite corpse (cadavre exquis). In 1948, using the pseudonym “Je Anonyme,” he signed the Prisme d’yeux Manifesto. In 1959, he left for Paris with his wife, artist Mimi Parent, meeting André Breton and becoming a member of the Surrealists. Benoît produced the masks, costumes and props for performances such as Le Bouledogue de Maldoror, a tribute to Lautréamont, as well as the necrophilic set and costumes for The Solemn Communion, a play by Fernando Arrabal, whose Panic Movement he joined in 1963. Benoît created surrealist objects that showed his taste for derision and provocation. In 1996, at Galerie 1900-2000, he held a personal exhibition of his works, which resemble sculptures, assemblages and jewelry. His subjects – featuring skulls, chimeras, phalluses and faces – are symbolic and mythological, with references to literature and to civilizations deemed as primitive. In 2004, an exhibition entitled Mimi Parent, Jean Benoît, Surréalistes was organized at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec by curator Danielle Lord.