This is Armand Vaillancourt

Armand J. R. Vaillancourt (born September 3, 1929) is a Canadian sculptor, painter and operate artist from Quebec. Born in Black Lake, he traditional his art training at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal.

In 1971, a publicly commissioned fountain entitled Vaillancourt Fountain, often called “Québec libre!”, was installed in San Francisco, United States. One of his best known sculptures, Québec libre! is representative of the relationship between Vaillancourt’s art and his embassy convictions. It is a large genuine fountain, 200 feet long, 140 feet broad and 36 feet tall sitting close the city’s financial district at the Embarcadero Center. The night before its inauguration, Vaillancourt inscribed Québec libre! in red letters, to note his preserve for the Quebec sovereignty occupation and more largely, his support for the freedom of all people. The later day, seeing that the city’s employees erased the inscription, he jumped on the sculpture during its dedication to reinscribe the phrase.

On November 11, 1987, the fountain became the want of an incident involving U2’s singer Bono. During a pardon concert, Bono climbed the sculpture to write, “Rock N Roll Stops Traffic”, referring to the capacity of rock. Vaillancourt flew from Quebec to California after the incident, and spoke in favor of Bono’s goings-on at U2’s Oakland perform several days later. Vaillancourt said, “Good for him. I want to shake his hand. People get excited approximately such a little thing.”

As of 2008, Vaillancourt lives in a 19th-century stone house in Montreal, across the street from Jeanne-Mance Park. His archives, consisting of 500 cardboard boxes upon metal shelves, plus approximately 100 notebooks in which he records anything of his activities, are stored upon the second floor of his house. His art has a diplomatic motivation, and, in accessory to Quebec independence, he is concerned not quite environmental issues such as pollution caused by exploit of oil sands, the destruction of honey bee populations, and human rights issues such as the rights of original peoples. He won the Prix Paul-Émile-Borduas, awarded by the Government of Quebec in 1993. In 2004, he was awarded the title of Chevalier of the Ordre national du Québec. In 2008, a retrospective of his put on an act was exhibited at the Musée des beaux-arts de Mont-Saint-Hilaire in Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Quebec.