Main Page | Exterior View | Short Tour | Detailed Tour

Nettie Covey Sharpe was born in 1907 in Saint-Augustin-de-Woburn, near Lac Mégantic. This young Anglophone went to the French parish school, where she met a friend who regularly invited her home. It was there that Nettie discovered "the warmth of the French-Canadian tradition." As she told Jean-François Blanchette in a 1983 interview, she purchased her first collectible at the age of 27. In fact, she had started collecting at a time when only a few connoisseurs took an interest in Quebec antiques or folk art.

Marius Barbeau

Before the 1950s, few collectors were interested in the treasures of the Quebec countryside with the exception of a handful of specialists, occasionally Canadian, but more often American. Mrs. Covey Sharpe was inspired by ethnologists Marius Barbeau and Jean Palardy, who were working in the field and who helped her develop her collection, the quality of which constantly continued to improve.

As a trailblazer, she had access to the most beautiful heritage objects. What's more, she was collecting at a time when people were eager to replace handmade antiques with modern chrome and formica. The Vatican II religious reform also led to a purging of religious art from the Catholic churches, and Covey Sharpe was able to acquire decorations and even sculptures that were being relegated to the attic, put in storage or simply left out on the street, if not burned.

In the 1970s, when Covey Sharpe was in her sixties, the main part of her collection was already established, and it was much rarer to find old treasures in their places of origin. She began collecting the work of contemporary folk artists and sharing the interest of young Quebec ethnologists in contemporary folk art and traditions. She was both a precursor and an influence on the direction that collecting would take in Quebec. She even went so far as to feed ideas to some craftspeople, both to see what they would do with a subject and to satisfy the demands of a market increasingly in search of the unusual. Just a few days before her death in March 2002, Covey Sharpe acquired her final piece of folk art, thanks to her friend Léonard Anderson, who accompanied her one last time before she departed on her final journey.

Main Page | Exterior View | Short Tour | Detailed Tour