Albert Rousseau was born in Sainte-Étienne-de-Lauzon, Quebec in 1908. He studied at the École des beaux-arts and soon saw his artistic ambitions curbed by the depression of the 1930s. In 1948, he received his first award at the Salon du Printemps. He had to give his family’s needs priority, working in a hostelry until 1965, meanwhile arranging to continue to paint regularly with such friends as Marc-Aurèle Fortin and to show his works in Québec and Montréal. In 1956 he built a studio where his colleagues came to paint. He taught at various Québec institutions 1964-67, and his painting was stimulated by frequent trips to both the Canadian and American Atlantic seashores. In 1964 he organized a first rural exhibition near his studio, and since 1971 these exhibitions have become the annual festival of the Moulin des arts de St-Étienne, which Rousseau saved from demolition and transformed into an arts studio that draws some 200 artists and thousands of admirers each season