Albert E. Cloutier (1902-1965)

Born in Massachusetts of French-Canadian parents, Albert Cloutier move to Canada in 1903. Mostly self-taught, he took frequent painting trips with A.Y. Jackson and Edwin Holgate of the Group of Seven. He began work as a commercial artist but eventually devoted himself to the fine arts, working in oils, watercolours, tempera, clay, wood, metal and mosaics. Cloutier’s work included a frieze for the Canadian pavilion at the 1939 New York World‘s Fair, a mural for Canadian Pacific train and twelve panels in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal. He was instrumental in the launch of the Sampson-Matthews print program, in his role as art director for the federal government’s Wartime Information Board in 1941. He was also an official war artist.