Born in St. Maurice valley, Quebec, he started painting in his thirties. His style is masculine, modern, but of representational subjects that include landscape and dock scenes of boats, houses and water. He travelled to Europe in 1963 where the resurgence of realism greatly influenced his own form of expression. A catalogue sheet from his exhibit, which included works from the group of 50 artists at the Chateau Laurier, Ottawa, carried these comments from his friend, a French Canadian poet François Hartel, “ . . . Léo Ayotte’s works, I consider, above everything, his extraordinary pictorial understanding of the Canadian feeling. In our country, light is strong, direct, implacable. To express gently, poetically, is an artistic challenge. Ayotte has faced and overcome this challenge.”

Source: “A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, Volume I: A-F”, compiled by Colin S. MacDonald, Canadian Paperbacks Publishing Ltd, Ottawa, 1977