Jean-Paul Ladouceur (1921-92)

Télé-métropole | 1979-1983

Building on experience to invent the future

After 13 years at the helm of JPL productions, the company had matured. It owned its own studio and still produced commercials, tv programs, films and other video productions. Its creative team included artists and directors and exceeded 40 employees without counting temporay staff hired for special mandates. Chairing JPL production had become an administrative task remote from studios and sets. Board meetings, activity reports, growth projections, accounting data, all these tasks necessary for the smooth operation of a million-dollar company had become a heavy burden for an art minded creator striving for action and discovery.

To alleviate J.P. Ladouceur's burden and channel his energy to its advantage, Télé-Métropole's board shifted him to creative a vice-presidency, tailor-made to harness his creative and visionary skills. He spent almost five years in this capacity before retiring. He had total freedom to scrutinize the future of television, to advise management, to suggest television concepts, to work and prepare new programs, to oversee the corporate image of the TM group.

Although these mandates occupied an important part of his schedule, he now enjoyed greater autonomy that provided more personal time he could devote to his watercolor passion, while laying the foundations for the next chapter of his life .
Stacks Image 1954
A pencil-sketched page prepared for Tele-Capital's annual report for investors in the newly listed company.
Stacks Image 1468
Dec. 8-77. Mont St-Michel | There are builders without remorse ... who have only stopped at the end of the steeple. From below or from above, it's impressive -

As years pass…

1978

  • He was promoted to Vice President, Tele-Métropole, with the mission of developing new programming ideas, targeting promising areas of development, and anticipating the trends of the coming years. He was also charged with maintaining a consistent corporate image in official company reports, senior management documents and presentations for investors interested in the TV station and the growing TV network it oversaw.

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1979

  • In collaboration with the Cultural Center of Verdun, he presented a solo exhibition and performed a public demonstration, a first instance of which would be followed by several others.

  • He was an invited speaker at the Montreal Advertising Club.

  • He once againt traveled to France in September 79 to attend a series of transport conferences in Lyon.

  • He was sent for a week long stay in Haiti as an adviser on improving local television production.

  • With Marcel Broquet, an art publisher, he launched the first book ot Collection Signature on which he had been working for the last two years. From this concept book would emerge an autoritative art book collection devoted to Quebec contemporary figurative painters.

  • LADOUCEUR, the first installlment, featured his own watercolors, while the secont book, BLIER depicted the paintings of Jean-Marc Blier (1921-1994), a colleague he knew from École des beaux-arts.

1979

  • He put the finishing touches to a collection of watercolors and ink drawings for a prestigious reissue of the classic quebec novel Un homme et son péché ( Seraphin: Heart of Stone ) edited by Stanké.

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1980

  • He put together a creative team to define the outlines of a serial TV drama titled Marisol. They were involved in the distribution, the general plot and the final synopsis of each episode which Micheline Bélanger signed the final draft. The TV show aired between October 1980 and May 1983.

  • In collaboration with the Verdun Cultural Center, he organized his first summer watercolor workshop where 27 would be watercolorists met to paint under the watchful eye of Ladouceur, some outdoor scenes of Verdun and nearby localities of the island.

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1981

  • Jean-Paul broke up with his wife Marguerite Gingras Ladouceur following an increasingly difficult relationship.

  • With the support of the Cultural Center of Verdun, he organized two more separate watercolor workshops in outdoor settings that were attended respectively by 31 and 35 eager students of the technique.

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1983

  • Ladouceur decided ot officially retire from television and communications.