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John Seguin, the third youngest of four children, was born in 1928 in North Bay, Ontario as John Francis Seguin. He was raised in North Bay.

He left Scollard Hall high school in Grade 10 to become a carpenter. In 1951, he began contract work. In 1953, he married Anita Major, whom he met in Temagami, Ontario. They married in 1953 and had six children. In 1957, he started John F. Seguin Ltd., a building contracting business that he operated until his retirement. In 1972, he created Bay Building Components, a manufacturing business, which he operated until 1979. When he retired, he spent winters in Big Pine Key or Punta Gorda, Florida .

From 1983 to 1985, he studied drawing, painting and photography at Florida Keys Community College in Key West, Florida. From 1986 to 1987, he studied drawing with Don Stewart, as well as painting and etching, in San Miguel D'Allende, Mexico at Bellas Artes. From 1987 to 1988, John took studio with Ron Shuebrook at the Ottawa School of Art, in Ottawa, Ontario, and participated in the extended art history trip to Europe with art historian, Yves Larocque. In 1988, he graduated with a three-year diploma. While in Ottawa, he studied painting and drawing with Richard Gorman and Robert Hyndman. His studio was in Callander Bay, Ontario. John died in 2001.

Solo exhibitions of his work have been held in North Bay at White Water Gallery and the W. K. P. Kennedy Gallery (John F. Seguin Retrospective, 2003).

John's works are in private and corporate collections, including J.S. Redpath, Correctional Services (North Bay), Ontario Northland Railway, and IBM.

(The biographical information featured here was written in consultation with John's daughter, Caroline Seguin-Rutland, in 2006.)

Profile:

John F. Seguin, local Building Contractor and Artist, was born in North Bay, Ontario, to parents Clara (Fournier), and Archie Seguin in 1928. My father's upbringing played a significant part in preparing him for the role of Painter. My grandmother, Clara, was also an accomplished Artist, and my grandfather, Archie, an amateur Jewelry Designer. The most significant aspect of his childhood, apart from his artistic milieu, was the richness of his surroundings. My father spent his childhood summers at his parent's summer cottage on Lake Nosbonsing, where he developed a connection with nature that was central in his work. His mother, a schoolteacher, encouraged his creativity. She recounted with pride his precocity when, as a very young child, he built a toolbox with precise accuracy and adorned it with a realistic painting of a devil.

My father attended a local primary school, St. Vincent de Paul, in North Bay, and later a local secondary school, Scollard Hall. He grew weary of the school routine and after many debates, decided to leave upon completion of Grade Ten. He felt that studying the likes of Oliver Cromwell had no relevance to a young man in Northern Ontario who planned on becoming a Carpenter. He began in the contracting business in 1951, and met his wife to be, Anita Major, while working up at Lake Temagami. They married in 1953 and started a family. He began his own contracting business, John F. Seguin Ltd., in 1957 and then in 1972 created Bay Building Components, a manufacturing business. In 1979, he closed the manufacturing business due to ill health and began focusing on the transition to retirement.

The attraction to nature was maintained during his working years by way of family cottages on Lake Temagami, the French River, and Lake Kipawa. He was always near the water and enjoyed northern lake activities such as fishing, boating and hunting. On retirement, he chose once again to reside on the water in Key West, Florida, and on Lake Nipissing. It is easy to see why nature formed such a central theme in his work.

In 1983 he began to study art at the Florida Keys Community College - studying drawing, painting and photography. In 1986 he left for Bellas Artes, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico to study drawing, acid etching and painting under the direction of Don Stewart. In 1987 John returned to Canada to study at the Ottawa School of Art, under Ron Shuebrook, Richard Gorman, and Robert Hyndman. He graduated in 1988 with a three year diploma in Visual Arts.

On a trip to Europe with the Ottawa School of Art, my father became interested in the loose brushwork of some of the Impressionist painters. He was particularly impressed with the work of Claude Monet. He examined Monet's style so as to include it in his experiments with painting with a loose technique. Other influences on his style included watercolour artist Jeanne Dobie. He studied her colour palette, her glazing and wet on wet technique that he later incorporated into his work. Although my father worked in many mediums, his medium of choice was watercolour, though he later painted in oil.

His subject matter found expression in sculpture, and figurative, abstract and landscape painting. My father loved to paint flowers and found inspiration in the gardens of North Bay resident Murray Sweetman. He researched and painted a series of historical area watercraft, of which the painting 'Sparrow' is an excellent example. Yet the painting 'Big Jim Kilby' best sums up all aspects of Dad's life: Art, Carpentry and Nature.

John F. Seguin was a talented and prolific artist. His work focused on the beauty and energy found in nature and he expressed it using his own unique conceptual style. Bold brushwork, dynamic skies, soft and graceful flowers, these are the descriptors that come to mind when I think of my father's work. His art was a passion that filled his life and consumed his energies. This was further reinforced when, during the last days of his life, his thoughts remained on what mattered most to him - his family and his art.

(By Caroline Seguin-Rutland; reprinted from exhibition catalogue with permission from the W. K. P. Kennedy Gallery)

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John Seguin
2000



Credits:
courtesy of Caroline Seguin-Rutland

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John Seguin, painting his final commission



Credits:
coutesy of Doug Mackey

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John Seguin, White Water Gallery exhibition schedule
1992