Biography

J.W.Stewart (John William) is an artist and illustrator who lives and works in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Mr. Stewart began showing his artwork in 1981 and has had numerous solo exhibitions and has participated in group shows in Canada, the U.S., France, Germany & Italy. His work is in public, private and corporate collections in Canada, the U.S. and Europe.

In the mid-1980’s Mr. Stewart began applying techniques developed in his personal work to uses in illustration as a means of supporting himself and his personal work.

His work combines imagery from photographic and documentary sources within a painterly context. Through the use and adaptation of various reproduction technologies this imagery is blended together along with effects of facture common to painting. Mr. Stewart often attaches assemblages or fabricated elements, usually also with imagery applied to them, to background artworks. Other works are entirely sculptural and freestanding. The pieces can be as big as 6 ft. x 9 ft. (2 x 3 meters aprox.)
This illustration work, anticipated by a decade work done digitally in Photoshop and with other computer programs. Mr. Stewart has now added digital work to his répertoire and does the work either entirely on computer or with his regular technique as the job demands.

His work as an illustrator runs the gamut of professional practice. It has been used in magazines, on book covers, on posters, on album covers, in annual reports, in advertising, on websites and on billboards. His editorial illustrations have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Scientific American, The Boston Globe, Smithsonian, Audubon, Forbes, Fortune, The Utne Reader, Reader’s Digest, Esquire, GQ and many other magazines.

His work has been selected for the annual exhibition of the New York Society of Illustrators and for Communication Arts’ Illustration Annual. It has been featured in the magazines Applied Arts and Studio. Designs in which Mr. Stewart’s artworks have figured have been selected for annual competitions of the Society of Publication Designers, the New York Art Director’s Club and Print magazine’s Design Annual.

Mr. Stewart has been active in the Association des illustrateurs et illustratrices du Québec (AIIQ – Quebec Association of Illustrators) as a member of the Executive Council for five terms. He organized and supervised the production of the first edition of its Répertoire, the organization’s visual directory, in 1989 and again in 1990. He defined the format that it follows to this day. In 1991 he was awarded a Career Achievement award by the AIIQ and in 1998 he was made a Membre Honoraire the association’s highest honor.

While engaged in the activities mentioned above Mr. Stewart has continued to make and show his own more personal work. Mr. Stewart concentrates his energies on the making of images for use as illustration and on his own personal artwork for gallery show. Exceptionally, he designs book covers for literary publishers.

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