D U R A N D C H R O N O L O G Y
SELF-PORTRAIT WITH MY SISTER
1964 Montreal
André Durand graduated from L’Ecole des Beaux Arts – teachers: Suzanne Rivard, Albert Dumouchel and Jacques de Tonnancour. Wins first prizes in painting, engraving, perspective, art history, music theory and French literature. One of the prizes, André Malraux’s The Voices of Silence, was to make an enduring impression upon the artist. “The artist looks at the world through the hole left by the unfinished section of his jigsaw puzzle. For the classical ideal of beauty we may substitute some other value – but it is always through this hole that, the artist looks, much as a man who has lost his key looks for some implement to break open his door.” André Malraux, The Voices of Silence, Chapter 3, The Creative Process. trans. Stuart Gilbert, 1956
Awarded a Canada Council travel grant to study the works of Titian, Michelangelo, Rubens and other European painters and sculptors, in Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, Antwerp, Brussels, Paris, Munich, Vienna, Venice, Florence, and Rome.
1966 Ottawa
Elizabeth Richie
“André Durand was born in Ottawa in 1947 and his work has already shown the metaphysical quality of an authentic imagination plastique. He is a figure painter for whom the arrangement of nudes in space, their relations to it, and to one another, provide an inexhaustible subject for exploration. Durand is more interested in the enigma involved in our ordinary ways of feeling than in the exploitation or defiance of our ordinary ways of seeing. He is a figurative painter out of love for and commitment to man’s emotional and moral nature. It is the sort of involvement which is for him unavoidable at a period of history where the root paradox of human nature is more clearly manifest than ever before, and even threatens to overwhelms us entirely. Durand believes that the creative person strives to restore to man the whole of his nature in a contradictory world where, while the possibilities for its development are perhaps greater than ever before, the disintegrating forces working against it are proportionately greater.”
E. S. Ritchie 1967
Natasha Emmett
P o r t r a i t
Michael Courdin
Natasha Emmett
Ralph Galley
Guy Huot
Robert La Palme
Bill Lawson
John Lawson
Joan Sutherland
Robert MacCarron
Elizabeth Ritchie
Judith Robertson
Joan Sutherland
John Swain
Louise Temerty
Ludmilla Temerty
Kostia Temerty
Sandy Turner
1967 Montreal
MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS
Exhibition, Galerie Anne-Marie Perron
1968 Montreal
HECTOR
Exhibition, Galerie l’Art Vivant
Greece
“From his base in Athens established at the Canadian Consulate under the auspices of Angelina Waterman, Durand draws extensively at the National Museum of Antiquites and travels to classical sites throughout Greece.
Like the three incarnations of Durand’s inspiration, Michelangelo, Rubens and Titian, the artist gathers his sources from Ancient Greece and the antique. A Classical education and his introduction as a boy to the culture and mythology of Ancient Greece have far outweighed any other influences on his work, and throughout his career to date they have remained the constants amongst great variation. Although Durand’s roots are in the antique the possibilities of interpretation with regard to his pictures are unbounded. Myths are hinted at, stories which we know well are mysteriously suggested, but we are more or less free to decide upon our own narrative.”
Brian Balfour Oatts, CLASSICAL FRAGMENTS
1969 London
Establishes a studio under the patronage of the Canadian High Commissioner the Hon. Charles Ritchie CBE who introduces Durand to TS Eliot, Kenneth Clark, Kenneth Tynan, Elizabeth Bowen, and Elizabeth Frink. Petrus Bosman and Brian Masters commission Durand to paint the principal dancers of the Royal Ballet, including Anthony Dowell, Wayne Eagling and Julian Hosking.
Major works sold to British and European collectors.
1970 London
m y t h o l o g y
THE TROJANS
Sponsored by Elizabeth Ritchie, Durand paints fifteen pictures inspired by Homer’s Iliad.
The series is completed in 1972.
1972 London
P o r t r a i t
THE RELUCTANT EARL
LORD GOSFORD
MANUEL AUGUSTO
MICHAEL COURDIN
PETER AND CARMELLA ELLISTON
CHARLES RITCHIE
LUDMILLA TEMERTY
ELIZABETH BOWEN
ELIZABETH RITCHIE
Durand’s portrait of the Irish novelist was commissioned by the Hon. Charles Ritchie CBE and featured in the National Portrait Gallery RECENT ACQUISITIONS exhibition. It was acquired for the permanent collection and remains one of the most popular pictures.
1973 London
Exhibition TERPSICHORE, St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden, sponsored by the soloist dancer Petrus Bosman. The first exhibition of paintings to be held at the Actors’ Church, TERPSICHORE featured life-size portraits of Royal Ballet dancers including Manuel Augusto, Anthony Dowell, Jenny Penny and Merle Park.
SVETLANA BERIOSOVA
P o r t r a i t
Royal Ballet principals:
STEPHEN BEAGLEY
SVETLANA BERIOSOVA
PETRUS BOSMAN
ANTHONY DOWELL
WAYNE EAGLING
MONICA MASON
CARL MAYERS
MERLE PARK
JENNY PENNY
MARQUERITE PORTER
ANTOINETTE SIBLEY
DIANA VERE
DAVID WALL
1975 London
Exhibition ANGELS, Helicon Gallery, Conduit Street, London
So successful was the show that its run was extended by two weeks.
Portugal
First visit to the Algarve.
1976 Venice, Florence and Rome
Studying 15th, 16th and 17th century Italian pictures and sculpture with Julian Hosking.
London
Exhibition FIGURES IN A LANDSCAPE, St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden.
s a c r e d
Fourteen paintings inspired by the Synoptic Gospels and Christian legends.
THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI
CHRIST APPEARING TO MARY
CHRIST AND THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA
CHRIST ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES
THE DENIAL OF CHRIST
THE MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT OF FISHES
ST. FRANCIS
ST. JEROME
ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST
ST. LUKE
ST. SEBASTIAN
p o r t r a i t
STEPHANIE BEACHAM
1978 London
Exhibition A DECADE OF PORTRAITS, Aberbach Fine Art, Saville Row.
California
Exhibition LONDON PAINTINGS, Geona Gallery, Santa Barbara.
p o r t r a i t
BARBARA BERHNS
JULIAN HOSKING
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY
AND FREDERICK, VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGH
ANTHONY DOWELL AND ANTOINETTE SIBLEY
LADY SOPHIA VANE-TEMPEST STEWART
FREDERICK, VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGH
AND HIS BROTHER SIR REGINALD VANE-TEMPEST STEWART
LUDMILLA TEMERTY
JO WEBSTER
“Few things appal Durand more than a portrait which consciously seeks to delve. All that can be conveyed by the sitter in life can be shown in an expression or a penetrating gaze and all that can be hidden by a face can be given away in the look of an eye or a half stopped smile. That portraits could have a further, deeper level not indicated by any symbolism or implied by any careless facial gesture is not a preoccupation for Durand. It is his candid acceptance of portraiture as a two-dimensional science which intrigues when faced with an example of one of Durand’s romantic likenesses, because it could be sworn that below the stillest surface rages a torrent of opinion and emotion.”
Brian Balfour Oatts
1981 Edinburgh
m y t h o l o g y
Exhibition MIRACLES AND METAMORPHOSES, Adam House, Edinburgh Festival 1981.
Mythological pictures based on the zodiac.
AFTER THE RAPE OF GANYMEDE
ARIADNE & THE MINOTAUR
BIRTH OF APHRODITE
BIRTH OF PEGASUS
CASTOR & POLLUX
TRIUMPH OF PERSEPHONE
Unlike any other contemporary artist, Durand seems to be immersed in the antique. Today he stands alone in the creation of heroic images and grand narratives – the transient taste in art rests elsewhere – and for this reason alone, his paintings have not been fully understood. Durand’s compositions are triggered by myth but involve a search for purity and that elusive concept of ideal beauty. In ancient times Greek sculptors created an idealised beauty by combining individual parts of the bodies of different models to create the perfect type. It is worth remembering that every time we criticise a figure because the legs are too long, or the shoulders too wide, we admit that an ideal beauty exists. Durand varies this idealization by creating a particular feeling of elegance in his pictures, partly through careful choice of surroundings, and partly by posing his subjects in complex attitudes not unlike Italian Mannerist painters tend to do.
1982 Portugal
Nazare and the Algarve
Durand absorbs new inspiration, developing a vibrant palette and working with new, broader brushwork.
a l l e g o r y
A MYSTIC MARRIAGE
MYSTIC MARRIAGE is Durand’s first allegorical picture, a genre of visual image popular in the renaissance invested with philosophical connotations. The artist has restaged the Royal wedding on a beach in Nazare, Portugal and conjures a bride in the form of Diana, Princess of Wales to focus attention on the deeper meanings within the picture. In Durand’s subsequent allegorical pictures the princess became an icon for the artist – a symbolic presence – which he used to stunning effect to reflect on issues as diverse as AIDS (VOTIVE OFFERING, 1987) and classical mythology (FORTUNA, 2000).
Rome
p o r t r a i t
Vatican, official portrait of H H JOHN PAUL II Commissioned by the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Unveiled 1983 Heim Gallery, London.
H H THE DALAI LAMA AT THE CONVENT OF SAN ANSELMO
THE COMMUNION OF MOTHER THERESA
GRAND MASTER ANGELO DE MOJANA
DI COLOGNA
Palazzo Malta Rome
1983 London
p o r t r a i t
Loan exhibition H H JOHN PAUL II, Ontario House.
1984 Montreal and Toronto
p o r t r a i t – s a c r e d
Exhibitions, Musèe Ramsay, Montreal, and City Hall, Toronto.
H H JOHN PAUL II
H H THE DALAI LAMA AT THE CONVENT OF SAN ANSELMO
COMMUNION OF MOTHER THERESA
AT THE HOLY DOOR
MYSTIC MARRIAGE
SECRET BETWEEN BROTHERS
p o r t r a i t
ANDREW CIECHANOWIECKI
EMMA SARGEANT
First of five portraits of Alex Baumann, Canadian swimmer and double Olympic gold medal.
1985 London
a l l e g o r y
OLYMPIAD SYMPOSIUM
Commissioned by Lord Ennals for the United Nations Association to inaugurate Peace Year 1986. Acquired by The Aquatic Hall of Fame and Museum of Canada, Winnipeg. Featured on the cover of Arts Review September 13th, 1985.
“Robert Smith, the Director of UNICEF, has had the perspicacity to discover Durand and Lord Ennals, in his capacity as Chairman of the United Nations Association of Great Britain and Ireland, commissioned the large narrative composition OLYMPIAD SYMPOSIUM, to inaugurate Year of Peace 1986.
Durand has taken as his theme youthful, multi racial ideology and the picture he has painted is based on the Olympic ideal. Durand’s admiration for the sound mind, sound body ethic is defiantly bold, even aggressive. The five swimmers are posed in an empty Olympic pool in Rhodes.
Clad only in their Speedos the five swimmers link hands symbolically, passing the Olympic flame, spirit of the Vestal Virgins and the Olympics, between themselves. A little boy, the spirit of hope for the future, poses winningly with his father, in the bottom left corner of the composition. Rather like the backdrop in a theatre the Acropolis at Lindos is set behind and above the empty pool. In this complex composition Durand’s considerable knowledge of the nude has resulted in harmony between the athletes: the classical cross composition is cleverly echoed by setting the athletes in size order with the tallest, black swimmer to the fore.The colour scheme is harsh and almost contemporary in the bottom half, with turquoise shadows; and the soft and ‘ancient’ colouring is reserved for the top half of the composition. This startling juxtaposition of colour schemes, united by the olive tree, traditional symbol of the Olympics, intergrates the Ancient and Modern Olympic ideal.”
Arts Review, front cover, 13 September 1985
1986 London – New York – Ottawa
s a c r e d
ECCE EQUUS, four large compositions inspired by the Book of Revelation, to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the United Nations Children’s Fund in the Year of Children’s Rights.
Unveiled by Jeanne Sauvé, the Governor General of Canada at the National Arts Centre:
The powerful message conveyed by these four major works cannot be ignored if we are to offer the children of a tomorrow a better world in which to live.
Jeanne Sauvé
p o r t r a i t
ALEX BAUMANN
SEBASTIAN COE
LIBERACE
GREG LOUGANIS
1987 London
a l l e g o r y
VOTIVE OFFERING
To commemorate the visit of Diana, Princess of Wales to the Broderip Ward, Middlesex Hospital Unveiled at St James’ Church, Piccadilly, London, November.
Diana, Princess of Wales with Sunnye Sherman, the first American to die from AIDS related illness.
“As a depiction of salvation and sanctification through martyrdom, VOTIVE OFFERING implicitly protests the existential fatalism and dispiriting nihilism that have darkened much ‘modern art’ since the Second World War. It is a piece of defiantly un modern art, perhaps even anti modern art, in its enthusiastic homage to the Renaissance. But ‘homage’ is perhaps too weak a word for Durand’s bold appropriation of Renaissance imagery; so too is allusion. VOTIVE OFFERING not only alludes to votive offerings and altarpieces by a host of Renaissance artists but also reflects aspects of their deeper, densely symbolic designs such as triptych structure and sacred symmetry. Perhaps return is the best word to describe Durand’s approach to his cinquecento sources. He has returned to them in a spiritual and philosophical as well as a visual sense in order to recreate something divinely powerful, something harmoniously healing in the pristine, yet archaic art of idealised forms.”
Prof. James Miller, Kingston University, London, Ontario
“In combining two very real women, Diana, Princess of Wales and Sunnye Sherman, in a present-day hospital ward, with archetypal representations of saints and patients, Durand has set the modern scourge of Aids in an historic context creating an atmosphere of timelessness and healing.”
Rose Elliot
“The power of Votive Offering is to evoke so many different responses: painful sympathy, warm compassion and ardent admiration.”
Baroness Jay
“Votive Offering is the heir to five centuries of European figure painting.”
Cecil Gould
“I have been studying your work for more than ten years now, and Votive Offering is the most important picture I have yet seen. I agree with Cecil Gould this masterpiece is the heir to five centuries of European figure painting. Bless you for the splendid work you have done and are doing.”
Alistair Cooke
1988 London Canterbury Edinburgh Glasgow Liverpool
Peterborough Wells Winchester Montreal
Exhibition, VOTIVE OFFERING, the subject of a lecture by art historian Cecil Gould at Canada House, London and the source of several essays exploring the ways in which artists respond to AIDS.
The picture made a pilgrimage journey to cathedrals in England and Scotland, and was shown at the International AIDS Conference in Montreal
p o r t r a i t
Durand begins two life-size portraits of H H the Dalai Lama
1989 Strasbourg
p o r t r a i t
Second sittings with the Dalai Lama in Strasbourg, resulting in two portraits posed at the behest of Labour peer Lord Ennals.
H H DALAI LAMA WITH A SARUS CRANE
H H DALAI LAMA, THE JEWEL IN THE LOTUS
Durand attends the Council of Europe ‘Colloquy on the Universality of Human Rights in a Pluralistic World’.
As the guest of the Benedictine monks at San Miniato al Monte, Durand was the first artist since Michelangelo to have lived within the monastery. Durand began a series of paintings inspired by the life and miracles of St Benedict.
Studies extensively the archaeological site at Paestum.
1990 Arezzo, San Sepulchro, and Florence
Continued work on sacred pictures started at San Miniato and made exhaustive studies of the pictures of Piero della Francesca.
s a c r e d
EPIPHANY
THE CHOICE OF BROTHER MICHAEL
GOOD FRIDAY SUN
INITIATION
ORDINATION
THREE MONKS
CONTEMPLATING A STATUE OF APOLLO
ROUND ART
p o r t r a i t
MARCHESE EMILIO PUCCI DI BARSENTO AL CAVALLO
DONATELLA GRILLI
MARIA VICTORIA CORTI GRAZZI
EMANNUELLE CORTI GRAZZI
GUILIO & FRANCESCA MILLONI
1991 London
Fire
Durand’s works in progress, his library, archive and studio equipment, as well as his entire personal collection of pictures by other artists are destroyed in a warehouse fire at James Bourlet and Sons Ltd., London, 16 October 1991. Among the pictures lost was Durand’s VOTIVE OFFERING of 1987.
1992 London
By October 1992 Durand began to paint again following the fire. Working with the pictures blocked in at San Miniato, Durand introduces new elements, in particular the symbol of the male nude, juxtaposing pagan and Christian iconography.
1994 London
Exhibition of DEATH OF ADONIS, after Sebastiano del Piombo’s painting of the same title, unveiled by Cecil Gould at Academia Italiana, London.
1995 London
p o r t r a i t
Dame Vera Lynn unveils her portrait by Durand at the Imperial War
Museum.
DAME VERA LYNN
ISABELL KRISTENSEN
ISABELL KRISTENSEN WITH HER DAUGHTER
MIRANDA TWISS
MAESTRO
(Craig Funke)
THE TRIUMPH OF BEAUTY OVER TRUTH AND TIME
(Josephine Cooke, Lady Rumbold, Jane Cook)
ELEANOR ROBINSON IN ROME
a l l e g o r y
THREE PRINCES
Allegorical portrait of the Prince of Wales with his sons, William and Harry.
Commissioned by George Elrick of Amphion Art for the Grand Order of the Water Rats; unveiled at the Café Royal, November.
LOGGIA
Allegorical portrait of Craig Funke with Durand, Rubens, Titian and Michelangelo.
Greece
m y t h o l o g y
Re-explores classical sites, Corinth, Olympia, Epidauros and Delphi in preparation for CLASSICAL FRAGMENTS.
London
PEGASUS
The prototype for the fair-haired hero on the winged stallion and hence the nimble pose, was the spirit of the classical dancer Julian Hosking, a muse for Durand not just as a subject for his painting, but in life. Hosking’s career with the Royal Ballet was distinguished but brief – he died in 1989 at the age of thirty-four – but not before he combined his dancing with studies of Egyptology, astrology and Italian painting. Hosking worked with Durand for over a decade and was often to be found researching subject matter for the artist as well as embodying for Durand the ideal male nude. A pivotal partnership, Durand pays homage to his dancer in PEGASUS.
London
m y t h o l o g y
Exhibition, CLASSICAL FRAGMENTS, Archeus Fine Art, Bond Street, London.
Durand continues to explore classical subject matter through the vision of Michelangelo.
MARSYAS FLAYED
PALESTRA
AFTERNOON OF APOLLO
VULCAN’S NET
THE BIRTH OF THE DIOSCURI
HERMES & HECATE
“Durand, like Winckelmann (1717-1768) believes that There is but one way for the moderns to become great, and perhaps unequalled; I mean, by imitating the ancients. Classical mythology has been a source of inspiration for the Canadian-born Durand since he began painting as a boy.
Today, as one the foremost painters in the world, Durand’s passion for Greek myth is evident in every picture he paints but is a view of classical mythology in the post Christian era. The advent of Christ requires a decisive change in representation and understanding of Greek mythology. Durand mythological pictures demonstrate a new, Neomodern approach to the ancient Greek myths.”
Megakles Rogakos, art historian and curator
1996 London
London, HOODWINKERS, three allegorical portraits
a l l e g o r y
LA VITTORIA
Eric Hebborn, forger; Anthony Blunt as a cardinal
BACON’S SELF-PORTRAIT AS INNOCENT X WITH JOHN PAUL II IN THE STYLE OF DURAND
Francis Bacon, painter
SALIERI’S DREAM
Brian Sewell, critic
al l e g o r y
ECLIPSE
Diana Princess of Wales as the Roman goddess Fortuna, unveiled at the Belvedere in Holland Park, London.
1998 London
BBC OMNIBUS, September
The Art Of Diana
Durand appears first on the program and the prophetic nature of his allegorical portraits of Diana Princess of Wales is discussed.
Exhibition ITALIANATE SUBJECTS, Albemarle Gallery
Dedicated to Durand’s friend, teacher and colleague Craig Funke. Sixteen pictures painted in Florence and London demonstrating the persistent influence of Italian renaissance art and neo-platonic philosophy on Durand’s work.
ARIA
THE DIVE
INTERMEZZO
LUTEMAKER’S DAUGHTER
MEZZOGIORNO
SAINTS COSMOS & DAMIAN
TIME & ART
1999 London
SACRED CONVERSATION 2000
A sacra conversazione commemorating the beatification of Padre Pio, the Vatican, 2 May 1999.
Exhibited at the Jesuit Church, Farm Street, Mayfair, June – December.
p o r t r a i t
Official portrait of H H JOHN PAUL II on temporary loan to the Brompton Oratory, courtesy of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
Spartan Girl Dancing
450BC
Kallimachos
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin