Sold for: $12,500

PROVENANCE
Gallery Gevik, Toronto
Private Collection, Toronto

Recognized today as one of Canada’s most celebrated abstract painters, Rita Letendre is best known for two distinct styles in a career that spanned from 1948 until her passing in 2021. Emerging from the Automatist and Plasticien debate which dominated the Quebec avant-garde in the 1950s and 1960s, her early paintings are characterized by imposing structures of paint, with thickly applied daubs of colour juxtaposed with forceful, dark areas of negative space.

By around 1964, Letendre began to move gradually towards a more hard-edge approach to her painting, using strong directional lines that suggest arrows or wedge shapes. By incorporating multiple lines she sought to create a feeling of vibration, depicting the energy of light and life shooting through space.

Painted in 2007, Desert Song comes from the mature period in Letendre’s career when she melded her two styles. The black negative space is incorporated here in the upper portion, while moving rapidly over the ochre ground is a diagonal flurry of colourful strokes of light. Evoking the title through colour and rhythm, Letendre here conjures the imaginary landscape from the depths of her artistic experience.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars

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