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The Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec is funded by the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec.

  
Collections
Selected works from the beginnings to 1900

Joseph Légaré
Québec (Québec, Canada), 1795 –1855
Training
  • In 1812, after three years at the Séminaire de Québec, was apprenticed to a painter-glassmaker.
  • Learned painting by copying (never went to Europe).
Artistic production
  • In addition to many copies of religious canvases, he painted portraits, genre scenes, and historical canvases. He also chronicled the events marking his times (cholera epidemic, fires).
  • Copying became a source of income for the artist, allowing him to perfect his art and techniques.
Alongside his artistic career
  • Showed great interest in his city and fellow citizens as of 1832, when a cholera epidemic hit. Belonged to the Bureau de santé de Québec (Québec City health office) and a welfare committee for needy families.
Features
  • First Canadian landscape painter.
  • Opened the first art gallery in Canada.
  • A supporter of Louis-Joseph Papineau’s Patriotes, he was arrested during the 1837 rebellion.