MONTREAL/October 2, 2003—
The Alumni Award for Excellence in Teaching is presented to a member of the Concordia University academic staff who has shown outstanding knowledge, teaching ability and accessibility to students. The first of this year's Awards for Excellence in Teaching is being presented to retired Concordia Professor of Fine Arts, Guido Molinari.
In the lexicon of art, Guido Molinari signifies Canadian avant-garde. A major figure on the Montreal art scene for over 50 years, he has been called l'enfant terrible of Quebec and Canadian abstract painting. Today, retrospectives of Guido's work are held at major museums around the world, a tribute to his place as a most venerated modern Canadian painter.
To Concordia, Guido is a much-loved friend and teacher, who gave inspiring lessons in painting and drawing two evenings a week for 27 years, until his retirement in 1997. He was part of the small cadre of remarkable artists who were the foundation of the faculty in its early days and brought prestige to the Faculty of Fine Arts.
As a teacher, though, Guido brought a great deal more. Any student or artist lucky enough to know Guido has memories of his articulate meditations on any work of art put before him, given with the same sheer enthusiasm and intensity with which he talked about any work of art ó not just those of a great master, but your work. For a young artist, having your work taken seriously by such a great artist was a powerful and significant experience.
Guido grew up in Montreal, the youngest of seven children, in a household where love of art, music and literature was life itself. His mother and his father, a noted musical director who founded the Montreal Symphony, nurtured his interest and abilities in art throughout his childhood. In his teens, he adopted the name ìGuidoî ó his given name was Benito Claudio Dino Guy Molinari. At the age of 15 he enrolled at L'…cole des beaux-arts in Montreal and began to seriously develop his talents. During this time, he became strongly influenced by the work of Piet Mondrian and the great Quebec abstract painter, Paul-Emile Borduas. Young Guido then studied briefly at the School of Art and Design at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and two years later, in 1951, he began working independently as an artist.
His artistic progression was rapid, and his hard edges and exacting use of colour shaped and defined 1950s abstract art, pioneering the geometric works of the Quebec Plasticiens. In 1968, representing Canada at the 37th Venice Bienniale, Guido was awarded the David Bright Prize ó the only Canadian painter so honoured. In 1980, he received the Prix Paul-Emile Borduas for his contribution to art in Quebec.
As an art teacher, Guido showed his students how to see and experience art as much more than a visual form. He conveyed a profound sense that an artist's work comes out of their own experiences, and an intense conviction of the importance of art in our lives. He taught his students to put forth the best of themselves in their work. This tremendous artistic spirit continues to inspire generations of artists from Concordia.
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