Sold for: $31,250

PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from the Artist by the present Private Collection, Montreal, circa 1965

LITERATURE
Guy Robert, Artistes de Montréal, National Gallery of Canada, 1965, reproduced and listed, unpaginated
Lorna Farrell-Ward, Jacques Hurtubise, Vancouver Art Gallery, 1981, unpaginated

EXHIBITED
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Artistes de Montréal / Artists from Montreal, 1965, traveling in 1965 - 1966 to the Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery, Regina; Saskatoon Art Centre; Winnipeg Art Gallery; Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax; Mount Allison University, Sackville; Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton; and the Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, catalogue #18

“I don’t know what you call the splash. It’s soft edge – it’s not soft edge. It’s a ‘splashy hard edge,’ put it that way. Because when I make a splash, in ’65, they are flat colors. The splashes are flat. There is no texture to it. There is nothing. I wanted them flat. So it was the fight between a flat plane and a flat splash.”

Jacques Hurtubise used these words to describe his unique approach to handling gestural movement within a two-dimensional space. Indeed, the remarkably spontaneous and expressive splashes of Hurtubise’s works are not what they seem. As explained in the quote above, these spills are not accidental, but instead deliberate and expertly contoured constructions, which were part of the artist’s practice from the mid-1960s. In Caroline, the orange hard-edge splash vibrates intensely against the solid white background. The overall composition is balanced by the pitch-black half of the canvas. By using simple forms and a reduced but saturated palette, Hurtubise produced a work with an intense optical impact.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars