Max Jacquiard

Max Jacquiard is to steam trains what Robert Bateman is to wildlife. The Coquitlam resident has quietly become one of the most respected artists in Canada in his specialized field of portraying the huffing and puffing steel monsters of an earlier age.
    Max is employed as a printer but has been painting for many years and since 1982 has painted steam trains exclusively. The powerful acrylic-on-canvas images conjure up visions of the strength and romance of the steam trains that have been a part of the artist's life since his early childhood days
in Manitoba.
    "It was all steam trains when I was a kid, "Max says. "I loved to watch them."
    The Jacquiard family moved to the Lower Mainland area of British Columbia when Max was eight years old. Like many other youngsters, Max loved to draw cartoons but eventually began to paint scenery and portraits before focusing exclusively on steam trains.
    Max Jacquiard has a sizable research library of printed materials, photos and slides of steam trains and the places they would have operated. It is that attention to precise and accurate details that sets Jacquiard apart from other artists of the genre. The sensitivity to his subject and a quiet passion that is infused into each work seem to allow Jacquuiard to breath life into the canvasses.
    Looking at Jacquiard's work takes you back to the mid-1940s when young boys could sneak into rail yards to peer through the grimy windows of a roundhouse and behold the hissing and gleaming steam locomotives inside.
    The evocative nature of Max Jacquiard's painting has captured the imagination of steam buffs across Canada and the United States. His paintings now grace walls in homes across the North America.