Marc-Aurèle de Foy (Suzor-Cote) Suzor-Coté (1869 - 1937)

Born 6 Apr 1869 in Saint-Christophe-d'Arthabaska, Québec, Canada

Ancestors

Husband of Jeannette Mathilde (Savard) Suzor-Cote — married 28 Nov 1933 (to 28 Jan 1937) in Daytona Beach, Florida

Died 29 Jan 1937 at age 67 in Daytona Beach, Florida

Biography

Marc-Aurèle (Suzor-Cote) Suzor-Coté is Notable.

Marc-Aurèle deFoy Suzor-Coté was born on 6 April 1869, and baptized Hipolyte Wilfrid Marcaurèle Côté the following day in Saint-Christophe-d'Arthabaska. He was the son of Louis Gonzague Théophile Côté and Cécile Suzor. ^[1]

The spelling used by the priest was incorrect; it should have been Marc-Aurèle (after the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus). Growing up, he was called Marc-Aurèle Côté until about 1893, at which time he added the surnames of his mother (Suzor) and maternal grandmother (de Foy) to his surname.

His friend Joseph Saint-Charles, a painter, advised him to study in Paris, and the two of them left for the city in the spring of 1891. He enrolled at the Académie Colarossi and in July 1892 he was admitted to the atelier of Léon Bonnat at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts.

He exhibited his first works in 1894 at the Salon de la Société des Artistes Français. From then on he would sign his works Suzor-Coté (without the circumflex). His first fully Impressionist paintings, with broken brushwork and bright colour, were made in Brittany in 1906.

After his return to Québec in 1908, he established a studio in Montréal creating paintings with classic interpretations of Canadian landscapes. He produced many Impressionist and even Post-Impressionist paintings of the Quebec landscape, as well as portraits, nudes, historical paintings and later, sculptures. In his paintings, he was most interested in the play of light on snow and water, leaving behind optical truth for more advanced goals.

He was made an Officer of the Academy of France in 1901 – an honour for a Canadian artist. He was also made a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. There were numerous exhibitions of his work during his lifetime and afterwards such as the retrospective of his work organized by the Quebec government in 1929. In 2002, Suzor-Coté, 1869-1937: Light and Matter, co-organized by the Musée du Québec and the National Gallery of Canada, was circulated by the Musée du Québec. This first major retrospective of Suzor-Coté, the first in 75 years, brought together over 140 works.

Suzor-Coté suffered paralysis in 1927 as the result of a stroke, and (Jeannette) Mathilde Savard became his nurse. They married in 1933. In 1929, he moved to Daytona Beach, Florida, where he died on 29 January 1937.

Contemporaries of Suzor-Coté remember him as extroverted, a man about town, haughty, boastful, and irreverent. He had produced a few self-portraits, in which he appeared, as he did in photographs, proud and dominating. He saw himself as a hard-working and enterprising person who took care of his appearance and respected social codes, while at the same time he was confident of his abilities as a storyteller, singer, and lively contributor to social encounters. His success did indeed rest on his talents, but also on his capacity for self-promotion, and without a doubt he had been his own best agent.

Sources

1. ↑ "Québec, registres paroissiaux catholiques, 1621-1979," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-899Q-MKXQ?cc=1321742&wc=HCHQ-168%3A19374901%2C19374902%2C13679101 : 16 July 2014), Saint-Christophe-d'Arthabaska > Saint-Christophe-d'Arthabaska > Baptêmes, mariages, sépultures 1869-1876 > image 33 of 290; Archives Nationales du Quebec (National Archives of Québec), Montréal.

See also:

• Translated from his tombstone: The 6th of April 1869 Marc-Aurele Suzor-Coté was born. A painter and sculptor, he died on 29 Jan. 1937 at Daytona Beach, Florida and was buried in St. Christophe Cemetery, Arthabaska Québec, Canada.
• Laurier Lacroix, “SUZOR-COTÉ, MARC-AURÈLE DE FOY (baptized Hypolite-Wilfrid-Marcaurèle Côté),” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 16, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed January 25, 2019, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/suzor_cote_marc_aurele_de_foy_16E.html.
• The Canadian Encyclopedia https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/marc-aurele-de-foy-suzor-cote?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIqJ_Q-ret9AIV1xTUAR1WlgRgEAAYASAAEgJzTfD_BwE
• Wikipedia contributors, "Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Marc-Aur%C3%A8le_de_Foy_Suzor-Cot%C3%A9&oldid=878172369 (accessed January 26, 2019).
• Wikidata: Item Q260166, en:Wikipedia
• Dictionnaire biographique du Canada

http://www.biographi.ca/fr/bio/suzor_cote_marc_aurele_de_foy_16F.html