Sold for: $29,250

PROVENANCE
Galerie Simon Blais, Montreal
Private Collection, Montreal

LITERATURE
Sandra Paikowsky, Rita Letendre: The Montreal Years, 1953 – 1963, Concordia Art Gallery, 1989, pages 23 and 30

Montreal Automatist Paul-Émile Borduas was an important early influence for Rita Letendre, and under his mentoring her work evolved from figurative painting to bold expressionist abstractions. Visits to New York and exposure to the American Abstract Expressionist movement increased her awareness of the power of the gesture in paint. Although Letendre’s work is non-figurative, she stated that her work of the early 1960s came from a need to “express the force of living nature, the expansion of natural growth.” Mysterious dark backgrounds are often seen during this period, across which play gusting tatters of bright forms, here in orange, white and gold. Close-up viewing reveals the beauty of the paint itself – heavily layered on with a spatula, it is lush and heavily textured, with its slashes expressing vitality. In reviewing a 1959 show, writer Pierre Saucier exclaimed, “Letendre seduces us with her disquieting mobility and her violent and sinuous lyricism.” This pronouncement could certainly apply to this sensual work, which seizes our attention with its vibrant, expressive gestures, and our imagination with its title Le rêve (The Dream).

All prices are in Canadian Dollars