Sold for: $38,350

PROVENANCE
Galerie R. Creuze, Paris
Private Collection, Montreal
Canadian Art Group, Toronto
Private Collection, Toronto

LITERATURE
Charles Delloye et al., Fernand Leduc de 1943 à 1985, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Chartres, 1985, essay by Jean-Pierre Duquette, page 33

EXHIBITED
Galerie R. Creuze, Paris, Riopelle - Leduc, May 26 - June 10, 1950

Fernand Leduc is acknowledged to have played a particularly important role in the theoretical discussions taking place among the young artists who gathered on a fairly regular basis at Paul-Émile Borduas’s home beginning in 1942—long before they were identified as the Automatist group. Correspondence from the period intimates that Leduc was the first to suggest that his fellow artists unite and hold common exhibitions of their work. In the often narrow-minded and restrictive climate of the early post-war period, this collaboration became a necessary approach to achieving any kind of exposure for a generation of avant-garde artists. Ultimately, Leduc, then living in Paris, was one of the co-authors of the Automatists’ Refus global manifesto when it was published in 1948.

This intriguing 1949 canvas is well defined by a quote from Jean-Pierre Duquette in a much later retrospective catalogue of Leduc’s work: “The Automatist gesture still produces unexpected, unplanned forms.” Indeed, the central focus of this work suggests an instinctive gesture, a dream-like apparition suspended in the ocean depths, enhanced by early signs of the artist’s explorations into the relation between matter and light.

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