April was raised in eastern Quebec and studied art at Laval University. She earned recognition in the late 1970s and 1980s for her self-portraits influenced by Proust and feminist performance art. In her work she incorporates found images of her family or landscapes, and she creates narrative through a series of photographs. After her 1988 residency in Paris, April’s work shifted more toward landscape and she became interested in integrating photography with text. April taught photography at Concordia University.

Image: Raymonde April, Portrait of the artist #1, 1980, gelatin silver print, 40.5 x 50.5 cm.

For further reading, see:

April, Raymonde. “A Fly in Paradise.” In 13 Essays on Photography, edited by Geoffrey James, 195–208. Ottawa: Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, 1990.

Baillargeon, Richard. “Reflecting Upon This Landscape: The Imagery of Raymonde April.” In Frame of Mind: Viewpoints on Photography in Contemporary Canadian Art, edited by Daina Augaitis, 92–102. Banff: Walter Phillips Gallery, 1993.

Enright, Robert. “Secret-Sharer: An Interview with Raymonde April.” Border Crossings 27, no. 4 (December 2008): 58–71.

Sloan, Johanne. “Relations, 1988: Photographic, Postmodern, Feminist.” Journal of Canadian Art History / Annales d’histoire de l’art Canadien 36, no. 1 (2015): 181–201.