Marcelle Ferron (1924-2001) was born in Louiseville, Quebec in 1924. She is considered one of the dominant figures in contemporary Canadian art. Marcelle Ferron was an active participant in Les Automatistes, led by Paul-Émile Borduas. She pursued an innovative artistic career including noteworthy public art works in stained glass. She was made a Knight of the National Order of Québec in 1985 and was promoted to Grand Officer in 2000.

She lived in Paris from 1953 to 1966 and continued to show in avant-garde exhibitions. She won the Silver Medal at the 1961 Sao Paulo Biennial in Brazil. During this time, Ferron’s paintings became progressively more forceful using vibrant colours and larger, fluid forms. She applied paint to the canvas thickly, with great intensity and straight from the tube, often using a palette knife rather than a brush.

Her work was exhibited in numerous collective exhibitions, both in Europe and the U.S. Including L’Exposition des Surindependants and le Salon des Realites nouvelles in 1956, the Antagonisme show at the Louvre in 1960, and at the Paris Musee Art Moderne in 1962 and 1965. Marcelle Ferron works can be found in many major public collections in North and South America and Europe such as the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, the Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, the Musee Art Contemporain, Montreal, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Hirshorn Museum, Washington and the Museum of Modern Art, Sao Paulo, Brazil.