Léopold L. Foulem (April 4, 1945 – February 18, 2023) was an internationally renowned Canadian ceramist. He lived in Montreal where he was a professor of ceramics, then of visual arts. His work was featured in over 50 solo exhibitions, including solo exhibitions at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec in Quebec City and the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art in Toronto, and he also lectured widely and wrote on the subject of ceramics. He was an expert on the ceramics of Pablo Picasso and in 2004 co-curated a show of Picasso's ceramics. One of his interests was early Québec studio pottery which he collected and gave generously to Canadian museums.
Career.
Foulem was born in Caraquet, New Brunswick. From 1964 until 1970, he studied at different schools including summer school at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Maine. In 1988, he received his MFA from Indiana State University.
For Foulem, "matter doesn't matter," as he said about his work and he sought to transform the limits of the medium sometimes incorporating found objects or using different 3-dimensional objects. Humour was one of his techniques. He made fun of several genres and forms as well as asserting, even provocatively, gay identity through his work. Unusually for a ceramic artist, his work is sometimes considered sculpture.
In 2023, Renée Blanchar made a documentary about Foulem titled "Lettre d'amour à Léopold L. Foulem [Love letter to Léopold L. Foulem]".