Many consider Serge Lemoyne to be Quebec’s first pop artist – he produced colourful works that often represented a favorite Canadian pastime – hockey. Lemoyne was born in Acton Vale, Quebec in 1941, and was considered a pioneer of performance art in that province in the 1960s. His most celebrated works are from his Red White Blue period, which was inspired by the colours of the Montreal Canadiens hockey team uniform. They are also the colours of the flags of the two countries that originally colonized Canada – France and England. Lemoyne devoted ten years to exploring hockey, and his greatest works can be attributed to this time.

Lemoyne studied at the École des beaux-arts de Montreal from 1958 to 1960. During his time as a student, Lemoyne was strongly influenced by two groups of Quebecois artists - the Automatists and the Plasticiens. Lemoyne helped found L’Horloge du Nouvel-Age in 1964 with Claude Péloquin, Yves Hébert and Jean Gauguet-Larouche. This group practiced art in the form of “happenings” – interactive performances that sought to engage the audience through the use of music, poetry, dance and visual effects.

His work has been shown in many important exhibitions, such as the retrospective in 1988 at the Musée du Québec and the 2008 show at the Musée des beaux-arts de Sherbrooke entitled Salut Lemoyne!, which also included works of other Quebec artists with whom Lemoyne was associated with.