Joseph Giunta: Canadian Artist

Canadian Artist Joseph Giunta (1911 - 2001) was a Canadian artist whose career spanned over 70 years. At the young age of 20, Canadian artist Joseph Giunta was accepted into the 1931 Art Association's Salon du Printemps held at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. As a Canadian artist growing up in the early 1900's, Giunta began his career as a figuration artist. Canadian artist Joseph Giunta's earlier works included a large number of landscapes depicting Canadian scenes. Canadian Artist

Joseph Giunta (1911 - 2001) was a Canadian artist whose career spanned over 70 years. Born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada on October 2, 1911, Joseph Giunta was the son of Italian immigrants from Sicily. In 1925, when he was just 14, Giunta enrolled in night courses at Monument National and took drawing lessons with Adrien Hébert and Johnny Johnston. Five years later, he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts de Montréal along side other Canadian artists. He also studied under the direction of Edmond Dyonnet and furthered his studies at the Copley Society of Artists in Boston from 1935 to 1937.

At the young age of 20, Canadian artist Joseph Giunta was accepted into the 1931 Art Association's Salon du Printemps held at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, where he showed again in 1934, 1937, 1940, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1957 and 1963. During the 1930's he also exhibited at the Royal Canadian Academy as well as with Marc-Aurèle Fortin in 1936.

November 1963 oil, 51 x 122 cm

As a Canadian artist growing up in the early 1900's, Giunta began his career as a figuration artist and had no choice but to undertake his artistic career according to what he saw around him, and to the ensuing influences of other Canadian artists such as the Group of Seven. He began painting much like many Canadian artists had, dominated by the Canadian artistic scene, basing the realization of their efforts on the renewal of the old formula like those of impressionism.

As a result, Canadian artist Joseph Giunta's earlier works included a large number of landscapes depicting Canadian scenes, particularly of the Quebec Laurentians, as well as seascapes from the Canadian and American Atlantic coasts.

Giunta's transition from figuration to non-figuration and then to abstraction corresponded exactly with the evolution of painting of other Canadian artists in the crucial period from 1945 to 1960.

By the mid 1950's Giunta's works became increasingly non-figurative to the point where many of his Canadian landscapes turned almost completely abstract as in November 1963 oil, 51 x 122 cm.

For a complete analysis of the work of Canadian artist Joseph Giunta, see Gestural Abstraction and Mixed Media Collage Abstract Art.