User:Allanaaaaaaa/sandbox/Angus Trudeau

Angus Trudeau (1908-1984) was an Anishnaabe painter who lived on Manitoulin Island, Ontario.

Trudeau was a self-taught hobbyist who, in retirement, began painting in earnest, after years spent working as a cook and sailor on ships in Lake Huron.

His later life was spent on the Wikwemikong Unceded First Nation. His first language was Ojibwe.

where he was much admired by the younger generation of the Woodland School of painters.

Trudeau's inspiration is drawn from the world of Manitoulin, although his vision is imbued with deeply personal insight. His subjects (the lake freighters and ferry boats, the bygone community buildings and events), are often portrayed through the diapason of memory or through reference materials he collected.

The artist's self-taught style is well suited to the purity and freshness of his vision. The approach perfectly conveys the lively delight with which Trudeau viewed the world around him and its ghosts from the past. His paintings incorporate a variety of media, including some elements of collage. Often bending the "laws" of perspective, they are startlingly vivid and richly evocative.

Angus Trudeau (1908-1984) chronicled life around Manitoulin Island. He had first-hand exposure to such ships as a deckhand on ferry boats and as a logger. Working from fond memories, most of the ships he painted were done after they had sunk or been de-commissioned. Yet rather than recording these works formally and as a strictly archival exercise, his fond nostalgia for such vessels takes license animating his subject. Here, unburdened by its sad ending, Trudeau elects to depict the Germanic (here rechristened by Trudeau Cermanic) in its happier incarnation - with a sartorial display of cheerful holidayers on board, cruising the sparkling waters of Lake Huron. This work was executed in 1980.