Pierre Ayot

Pierre Ayot

Pierre Ayot, engraver and multidisciplinary artist (b at Montréal 26 Jun 1943; d at Saint-Jean-de-Matha, Qc 2 May 1995). He studied engraving with Albert Dumouchel at Montréal's École des Beaux-arts, where he began teaching in 1963. He pursued a career as a teacher in the visual arts department at l'U du Québec à Montréal until his premature death in an automobile accident. In 1966, Ayot founded GRAFF, a centre for graphic design and a particularly dynamic collective workshop during the early seventies, dominated by an aesthetic inspired by both American pop art and Dumouchel's activities.

Ayot's work was the object of some forty personal exhibitions in Montréal, elsewhere in Canada, and also in Paris, Basle, Brussels and Geneva. His participation in collective exhibitions and Silkscreen Biennials in Canada and abroad are innumerable. But we will especially remember his major exhibitions at the MUSÉE D'ART CONTEMPORAIN DE MONTRÉAL, the MUSÉE DU QUÉBEC, and after his death, at the MUSÉE DES BEAUX-ARTS DE MONTRÉAL. In 1989, he won the prix Louis-Philippe-Hébert from the SOCIÉTÉ SAINT-JEAN-BAPTISTE. Ayot's endeavours are interesting, among other reasons because the artist had an entire multidisciplinary career in silk screening, and showed that it was not necessary to depart from engraving to expand. He carried out this "deception" for 30 years and strove to short-circuit the hierarchy between noble and the most mundane themes. He created an unforgettable imaginary museum from his imagination.