Sold for: $1,081,250

PROVENANCE
Galerie Gilles Corbeil, Montreal, 1974
Margaret Carton, Montreal
A gift to the family of Margaret Carton, Toronto

In 1973, on the eve of his seventieth birthday, painter Jean Paul Lemieux’s illustrious career was about to spread beyond Canada’s borders. A major retrospective exhibition was on its way to the USSR, Czechoslovakia, Belgium and France, showcasing his pictorial work (1953 to 1973) for the first time.[1] Comments in the visitors’ book from the Russian portion of the tour offer vivid accounts of the Canadian artist’s work and the universality of his messages. For example, one attendee noted, “The exhibition forces us to dig deep, to discover the thought process behind each of the paintings. This is the work of a thinker.” Another wrote, “This is not Canada, this is the horizon of conscience.[2] These remarks speak volumes about the meaning of Lemieux’s art in cultures other than his.

It is easy to apply such comments to La nuit des rois, a sensational painting that is currently resurfacing in the Canadian art market. The piece disappeared from public display after it was acquired in 1974 by Galerie Gilles Corbeil in Montreal.[3] This painting is sensational not only for its size (one of the biggest works Lemieux created in 1973) but also for the powerful effect of a subject that had inspired the painter since 1956—human loneliness, a theme he would explore until the end of his life. In his early classical period (1956 to 1970) and throughout his expressionist period (1970 to 1990), Lemieux depicted loneliness in landscapes in which his figures extend beyond the edge of the canvas. By placing people at the edge, he creates the illusion that they are about to exit the scene and disappear, leaving behind nothing but an expanse of snow that becomes a force field. And so it is in La nuit des rois, where faint, colourful lines in the distance hint at dwellings, a tiny hamlet teetering perilously on the horizon in what is otherwise a vast expanse of white snow. Will it tip over into the immensity of the night and the depths of the universe? The sonority of these delicate strokes contrasts with the symphony of stars twinkling at night.

Lemieux turned to William Shakespeare for the title of his painting, which translates as “Night of the Kings,” naming it after the play Twelfth Night. This is, of course, a reference to the Christian feast of the Epiphany and the visit of the Magi, twelve nights after the birth of Jesus. The painter also gives a nod to one of his own paintings, Orion (1976, private collection), by placing the constellation at the right-hand side of the sky, above the human figure. In La nuit des rois we can see the diagonal line of the three stars of Orion, known as the “Three Kings.”

“Everything is space, presence, and sensitivity” in Lemieux’s mature work. This comment from the film Tel qu’en Lemieux, produced and directed in the painter’s Quebec City studio in 1973, holds true for La nuit des rois.[4] Appreciation of this masterful painting heightens our understanding of how his creative journey unfolded between 1970 and 1975, as his classical period gave way to his expressionist period.

We thank Michèle Grandbois, author of Jean Paul Lemieux au Musée du Québec, for contributing the above essay, translated from the French. This work will be included in Grandbois's forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's work.

1. The Jean Paul Lemieux exhibition was organized for France by the Ministère des Affaires culturelles du Québec and for the USSR and Czechoslovakia by Canada’s Department of External Affairs. It was presented in Russia and Europe between July 1974 and January 1975. A catalogue of the exhibition was published in French by Éditeur officiele du Québec in 1974.

2. Quoted in “Les Russes ont bien apprécié les oeuvres de J. Paul Lemieux,” Le Quotidien (Chicoutimi), February 6, 1975, and “Un maître québécois triomphe en Russie,” Journal de Québec (Quebec City), February 1, 1975.

3. The sale is recorded in the handwritten book Liste des oeuvres du peintre Jean Paul Lemieux [1965–1980], Fonds Jean Paul Lemieux et Madeleine Des Rosiers, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa.

4. Guy Robert, dir., in Tel qu’en Lemieux (L’Office du film du Québec, 1973).

All prices are in Canadian Dollars