Anne James on a celebration of the extraordinary Oxford printmaker France Brodeur

The first France Brodeur solo show comes almost a year after her death following a long illness.

Printmaking was central to her to the last. A journalist and translator, she said, “During all my adult life, I have worked to earn money during the day and dedicated my evenings, weekends and dreamtime to my art.” Brodeur wrote of her work: “Essentially, what I am seeking in my artwork is to draw the viewer’s gaze into the print and then for him or her to ‘live’ for a while in its world. The more one looks at a print, the more should be revealed.”

Her work has an ethereal beauty that softens hard edges, creating a focus that entices and engages. She used a wide range of print techniques, sometimes on their own, but more often in combination.

These included sugar lift, where an etched plate is painted with a sugar solution which is then partly melted off in very hot water, exposing areas of the etched plate to the acid. It provides a final print with a dreamlike miasma, as in her Foret de Givre, where the view into the forest melts into a ghostly enticing space gently policed by bare grey-black trees.

Brodeur’s work drew on her native Canada, on European traditions and on an England that became her adopted home.

This is beautifully illustrated by the excitement and romance of her series of prints of the M40. She manages to imbue that most functional and unprepossessing of roads with both mystery and surprise. A horizontal line cuts each piece: a homage, as it were, to the central reservation’s barrier. And each develops its own story. Mild Evening in Nettlebed, via cool creams; Towards Warwick Castle, in greens and whites; Slow Down, adding autumn gold to the greens; and Looking Up at Avon Dassett, using turquoises with white tree forms enhanced with an injection of cardinal red and blue blacks.

As a tribute to Brodeur, the Oxford Printmakers Cooperative, to which she belonged, has staged this solo show to coincide with their members’ exhibition at Radley College.

It also marks the launch of the France Brodeur Young Artist Award, created in her memory.

The intention is to raise sufficient funds to provide financial support to young artists who could not fulfil their potential without help.

Full details of the award, how to apply and how to donate to it, are at france.brodeur.co.uk.

Miles Larmour, Brodeur’s widower, believes this lasting tribute will provide artists with the means to achieve their ambitions and passions; something very close to his wife’s heart.

A Lasting Passion, an attractive book of essays and plates of her work, accompanies the show and all profits from it will go towards the award fund.

Brodeur is pictured on this page using the enormous press at the Co-operative on which she made much of her work.

France Brodeur
Oxford Printmakers Co-operative, Christadelphian Church Hall, Tyndale Road
Open Saturdays, Mondays and Tuesdays until April 18