Michel Paradis

FIELDS OF INTEREST
Born in Saint-Edmond-de-Grantham, Quebec, in 1957, Michel Paradis graduated from Laval University in Actuarial Science. He also holds an M.Sc in finance from the same institution. He has worked in the world of finance mainly in three organizations: Export Development Canada (EDC) in Ottawa, the French bank Crédit Lyonnais in Montreal and New York and at the Desjardins Group in Montreal as Vice-President, Integrated Risk Management. He currently serves on several boards of directors and various committees in both arts and finance community, including the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Esse magazine, Galerie B-312, the Festival international des films sur l’art (FIFA) and others. Michel Paradis is passionate about art. He has been a collector for more than 30 years. His passion for collecting (more than 200 works) was the subject of a documentary film directed by filmmaker Anne-Marie Tougas and presented as the opening film at the Festival international des films sur l’art (FIFA) in Montreal in 2010 under the title Vivre avec l’art, un art de vivre. The film has been presented many times on TV5, Radio-Québec, Radio-Canada and in various cultural centres in Quebec. The Landriault-Paradis collection was the subject of an exhibition at the Centre d’art Expression de Saint-Hyacinthe in 2014 curated by Professor Johanne Lamoureux of Université de Montréal. Michel Paradis is the initiator of Caisse centrale Desjardins and Credit Lyonnais Canada art collections. Michel Paradis is already involved in works donation from his collection to various Quebec museums (Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and Musée d’art de Joliette).