iconTechnique: Oil
1911-2001
Joseph Giunta, of Sicilian origin, was born on October 2, 1911 in Montreal.
His father, who had ambitions as a lawyer or doctor, opposed the artistic career he dreamed of undertaking. However, in 1925, at the age of 14, the young Giunta enrolled in evening drawing classes at the Monument National under the direction of Adrien Hébert and Johnny Johnston. Five years later, he entered the Montreal School of Fine Arts under the tutelage of Félix Maillard, Joseph St-Charles and Edmond Dyonnet. From 1935 to 1937, Giunta studied at the Copley Society of Artists in Boston.
He began exhibiting his works in 1931, and during the 1930s, his work was shown at the Royal Canadian Academy and at the Salon du Printemps of the Art Association of Montreal. It was in 1936 that his first solo exhibition took place with Marc-Aurèle Fortin.
Until the sixties, Giunta practiced traditional painting with portraits, still lifes, landscapes, urban scenes and nudes as subjects. In 1956, he made a study trip to France and Italy. There he visited ancestral Sicily, from where he brought back urban scenes and landscapes. In 1958, his work moved towards abstraction. His paintings, with bright and intense tones, become textured and have dynamic gestures. During this period, he exhibited at the Galerie Zanettin in Quebec.
The artist also participates in several group exhibitions; at the Coin des Arts, at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and at the Quebec Pavilion in Osaka, Japan, in 1970. That same year, he took part in traveling exhibitions in different galleries in Quebec. In 1972 and 1973, he worked on the creation of his compositions "Assemblies and constructions" in which he completely detached himself from his previous work to invent his own plastic synthesis. There he developed the most innovative part of his art.