First Name: Noel

Last Name: Duchrame

Full Name: Noel Duchrame

Date of birth: 1921

Place of birth:  Lake Helen Reserve, Nipigon, Ontario, Canada

Date of death: 1988

Community / Heritage: Ojibwe

Sex: Male

Art Media: Acrylic, mixed media, oil, wood carvings.

Bio:

Noel Ducharme was an Ojibwe Canadian artist born in 1921 at the Lake Helen Reserve, east of Nipigon, Ontario, Canada.

When Noel was a baby, his family moved to the Fort William Indian Reserve close to Thunder Bay. His father was a career teacher and his mother a trapper. Noel was a self-taught artist whose paintings, carvings and silkscreen prints were inspired by the legends told to him by his mother. He credited his mother for his appreciation for animals and plants, culture and traditions of Ojibwe people.

While Noel always had interest in art, he pursued art as his career more actively when he was in his forties. For twenty years, Ducharme worked on lake freighters. His first commission came from the Captain of the last freighter he worked aboard, who had encouraged him to pursue a career as an artist and requested a painting of his ship.

In 1973, he received the top award at the McLaughlin Art Gallery show in Ottawa and presented a painting to Queen Elizabeth II on her Royal Canadian tour.

Noel Ducharme exhibited alongside Norval Morrisseau, Carl Ray, Roy Thomas, and Joshim Kakegamic at the Thunder Bay National Exhibition Centre, Thunder Bay, Ontario in 1977. That same year, with support from the Fort William Indian Band, Ducharme opened his “Gallery of Canadian Indian Art”.

Noel passed away in 1988.

His work is part of many private and public collections, including the McMichael Canadian Collection, Kleinburg, Ontario, and the Indigenous Art Centre, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, Gatineau, Quebec.

Exhibitions

• 2012: Lake Superior Art Gallery in Victoriaville Centre, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada
• Kar Gallery, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• Thunder Bay National Exhibition Centre, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada

Collections

• McMichael Canadian Collection, Kleinburg, Ontario,  Canada
• The Indigenous Art Centre, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada Gatineau, Quebec, Canada

Articles

https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDMDC-TSPA_0044768F&R=DC-TSPA_0044768F

Awards

The top award at the McLaughlin Art Gallery show in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada