Mimi Parent

Who was Mimi Parent?

Mimi Parent, born Marie Parent in Montreal, was a Canadian surrealist artist.

She was the eighth of the nine children of architect Lucien Parent. Between 1942 and 1947 she studied art at the École des Beaux-Arts de Montréal where she met the artist Jean Benoît. In 1947 she had her first one-woman exhibition at the Dominion Gallery in Montreal which received praise from Time Magazine.

In 1948 she received the Cézanne medal and exhibited at the "Surrealist intrusion into the Enchanter's Domain" in New York in 1960 and in 1966 had a solo exhibition at the "Maya" gallery in Brussels. She has also exhibited in Chicago, London, Lausanne and Frankfurt. She assisted with the organization of the "Exposition inteRnatiOnale du Surréalisme" which ran from December 15, 1959 to February 15, 1960 in Paris, with the catalogue for the exhibition being designed by Parent and Duchamp. The exhibition catalogue, titled Boite Alerte – Missives Lascives, was presented as a green box into which ideas could be 'posted'.

She lived and worked in Paris, France. She died 14 June 2005 in Switzerland.