Canadian artist Narcisse Poirier was born in 1883, in Saint-Félix-de-Valois, Quebec. At the age of eight years, Poirier was already drawing portraits of visitors to his family home. He soon moved to Montreal to pursue a career in the arts and studied at the Monument-National. He continued his studies in art at the Académie Julian in Paris. After his return from Europe in 1922, the government of Quebec honored him with purchasing one of his paintings, “The Old House of Henry IV”, painted in the Paris region.
From 1925 to 1928, he exhibited at the Royal Canadian Academy as well as at the Galerie Morency and participated in numerous group exhibitions with the sculptor Alfred Laliberté. For 25 years, Poirier exhibited his works at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. In 1975, Poirier exhibited works at the Canadian embassy in Washington, D.C.
The artist has painted a number of religious paintings which can be found in churches at Saint-Félix-de-Valois, Saint-Eustache, Montreal and Rivière-du-Loup. His landscapes, painted in a traditional style, usually take as their theme the countryside of Quebec.
"I have always worked from nature while doing poetry with nature ... I didn't want to stick to photography, nor do impressionism ... I always wanted to perpetuate the Quebec of yesteryear in my paintings”.
