art + objets d'arts + photography

Jeannine Robertson, Artist 

Jeannine Robertson (née Bergeron) was born in Nôtre Dame de Grace, Montreal, in 1931, the eldest of five children. Thanks to a family benefactor who recognized her talent, she began her early art education there, at the École des Beaux Arts, with classes in life-drawing and design taught by Arthur Lismer, Gordon Webber, and Jacques de Tonnancourt. She fondly remembered the freedom and exhilaration she felt as a sheltered Catholic School girl, taking the long streetcar ride alone to attend these classes. After high school, Jeannine trained in fashion layout and illustration at the Valentine School of Commercial Art in Westmount and began designing and illustrating children’s clothing.

Choosing marriage and family over her youthful dreams of moving to New York to conquer the art world, Jeannine moved to the Ottawa Valley with her young family where she participated in sculpture, painting and welding workshops with James Boyd, Victor Tolgesy, John Sadler and Brodie Shearer. At the same time Jeannine established The Art Boutique, Westboro Village’s first art supply store, framing shop and exhibition space. There she became well known for her vivid watercolours of the region’s rapidly vanishing railway stations and for her sensitive portraits of prominent local figures. 

In 1980 Jeannine moved her gallery into Ottawa’s historic Byward Market and Braam Gallery became one of the city’s most prestigious exhibition spaces. In the same location Jeannine opened Ottawa’s first bookstore devoted solely to art, art history and design. She also continued her work as a beloved and inspiring instructor of watercolours at the Ottawa School of Art.

Through all these busy years Jeannine continued to produce and exhibit throughout Canada and Europe in group and solo shows and she spent extended periods of time in New York (working in bronze at the Pietrosanto Artists’ Studio) and Paris (exhibiting at Galérie Hérouet in the Marais District). In recent years, she preferred the relative quiet of the City of Brockville, where she continued to work intensively. Her final period was characterized by colourful, abstract paintings that seem to shift dynamically, tantalizing the viewer with hints of depth and movement that, in turn, invite us to see the colour and light in the world around us in different ways.  

Jeannine defined herself through her art. Her work, in all genres and mediums, reflected her innate tenacity and optimism. Her love of music (especially Jazz) shone through in her use of dynamic form and bold lines. She was greatly influenced by architecture and landscape and she absorbed and assimilated every aspect of her surroundings in her powerful and energetic work. The skyscrapers of New York, the historic beauty of Paris, the undulating countryside of the Ottawa Valley, and the St. Lawrence Seaway all figured prominently in her paintings and sculpture.

Jeannine was predeceased by her brother Gerald, her sisters Jacqueline and Berenice and by her beloved middle son, Robert Lyle Robertson. She leaves behind her eldest son William Havelin, her daughter Andrea Jaqulin (Craig Walker), her grand-children Pierce and Sydney, her step-grand-children, Megan, Justine and Penelope and great-grand-children who arrived too late to be part of her life.

Per Jeannine’s wishes, there will be a short reception in her honour on Sunday, August 28, 2022 from 2:00 pm – 4:00pm in the Central Chapel of Hulse, Playfair & McGarry Funeral Home, 315 McLeod Street, Ottawa, Ontario.