Sold for: $15,340

PROVENANCE
Galerie Camille Hébert, Montreal
Private Collection, Montreal
Private Collection, Toronto

LITERATURE
Roald Nasgaard, Abstract Painting in Canada, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, 2007, page 180

Rita Letendre spent most of 1962 and 1963 traveling in Rome, Israel and Paris, returning to Montreal in the fall of 1963. Sirius was completed during this Parisian sojourn and is characteristic of her paintings from the early 1960s. Dominated by thick black knife strokes, the hot mustard pigment enters as a relief, surging into the darkness and creating a beak-like form in its wake. As Roald Nasgaard explains, Letendre created a “sense of turbulent drama...intensified by brighter colours pushing, as if seeking liberation, against masses of black.” Sirius is energized by the broad, confident swathes of paint dancing across the surface and into each corner of the canvas, expressing Letendre's unique painterly language. Mentored by Paul-Émile Borduas in the 1950s and associated with the revolutionary Quebec group the Automatists, Letendre quickly found a passion for bold, expressionist abstraction. Developing her skills and focusing her ardour for painting throughout this decade, by 1960 Letendre had established herself as a unique and self-assured artist. Sirius is a powerful example from this highly sought-after period in Letendre's oeuvre.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars

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