The rooster itself is the proud symbol of France. Dallaire was interned in France by the Nazis during the Second World War but, despite trying circumstances, learned to love that country well.
A mural artist, illustrator, painter and teacher, Dallaire was born in Hull, Quebec in 1916 and attended schools in that city. As a youth, he enjoyed drawing, painting and copying movie posters in the attic-studio of the family home. Later, he kept company with a group of artists known as the Confrères artiste du Caveau - the fellow artists of the cellar - an association that was for twenty years one of the most active of its kind in the Ottawa Valley, holding meetings, organizing exhibits, and teaching their techniques to other emerging artists.
Dallaire studied art in Hull, Toronto and Boston as well as taking courses at Montreal's School of Fine Arts. With his new bride, he left on a Quebec fellowship for a study trip to Europe and was in Paris when the Germans invaded. Interned in a civilian camp, Dallaire produced still lifes and portraits during his four years of prison. In 1945 he returned to Canada.
Living in Quebec City in the late 1940s, Jean taught and produced many murals and oil paintings, but moved to Ottawa in 1952 where he obtained work with the National Film Board, illustrating educational films on historic and folkloric subjects. He left the NFB in 1958.
Dallaire exhibited his works in such centres as Paris, Sao Paolo, Seattle, and San Francisco in the 1950s winning both the praise of critics and the admiration of collectors. In 1958 he returned to France and died in Vence in southern France in 1965.
Royal Bank of Canada
Galerie Montcalm
Peinture Québec
Festival de peinture à Mascouche
