Denis Juneau was born in Verdun, Québec, in 1925. Like Jean Goguen, Juneau was in the second Plasticiens group. He studied fine arts at the Monument-National (1942–43) and at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal (1943–50), where he was taught by Sylvia Daoust, Armand Filion, Jean Benoît, and Alfred Pellan. He then trained as an apprentice goldsmith with Georges Delrue (1951–52). From 1954 to 1956 he lived in Italy, where he studied industrial design at the Centro Studi Arte Industria di Novara under the direction of its founder, the painter and designer Nino di Salvatore. After returning to Montreal, Juneau took part in Galerie Denyse Delrue’s inaugural group exhibition in 1957. The following year, this same gallery presented a solo exhibition of his work. His participation in the exhibition Art abstrait, organized by Fernand Leduc in 1959, marked a turning point in his career. In fact, the 1960s were a defining period in his overall practice. His geometrical approach to abstraction foregrounded his experimentations with colour, as evidenced in this painting, titled Jaune sur bleu, dated 1966.
Juneau’s works have been shown in numerous exhibitions throughout Canada and abroad, including in Brussels, London, New York, Paris, Spoleto, and Washington, DC. Among his most important shows were Juneau, a travelling exhibition organized by the Consulate General of Canada in New York (1975–76); Denis Juneau: New Perspectives (1956–1984) at the National Gallery of Canada (1984–85); and Ponctuations, a retrospective organized by the Musée du Québec in 2001–02. Juneau was elected a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1973. He was awarded the Gershon-Iskowitz Prize in 1986 for his outstanding contribution to contemporary art, and the Prix Paul-Émile Borduas in 2008 in recognition of his overall career. He died in 2014 in his native Verdun.
