Alfred Laliberté
Alfred Laliberté was born in 1878, in Sainte-Elizabeth-de-Warwick, Quebec. He showed early promise as a sculptor, and in his early twenties took classes at the Council of Arts and Manufactures in Montreal. In 1902, he went to Paris to study at the École des beaux-arts, where the sculptures of Auguste Rodin particularly influenced his work. His Young Indians Hunting received a special mention at the 1905 Salon du printemps (spring fair) in Paris and was acquired by the National Gallery of Canada. In 1910, the Government of Quebec commissioned him to create two large sculptures for the exterior of its legislative building. He was elected a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1919 and a member of the Académie des beaux-arts de l’Institut de France in 1948. Over the course of his life, he created a thousand bronze, marble, plaster, and wooden statues. He is remembered as an accomplished sculptor whose work celebrates French-Canadian rural life and commemorates the heroes of Quebec. Laliberté died in Montreal in 1953.
