Sold for: $21,060

PROVENANCE
Galerie du Siècle, Montreal
Private Collection, Toronto

LITERATURE
Roald Nasgaard, Abstract Painting in Canada, 2007, page 208

The 1960s were an exciting and formative period for Jacques Hurtubise. A grant in 1960 enabled him to travel to New York, exposing him to the spontaneous and physical work of the Abstract Expressionists. However, by the mid-1960s, Hurtubise began to develop his own artistic voice with his important “splash” paintings, which were deliberate, formalized and mechanically drawn with a stencil. As exemplified in the elongated Odette, he focused on bold, simplified geometric elements with popping colour contrasts, producing an effect of a foreground that recedes into an emerging background. Regarding the splash paintings, Roald Nasgaard writes: “Sometimes the paintings are as much Pop art as Op. Hurtubise’s conventionalized splashes and Roy Lichtenstein’s brush-strokes are more or less contemporary. Hurtubise’s splash paintings are Warholian too, sporting their flashy iconic impact with the panache of a Marilyn on a gold ground. The association is not far-fetched, given that Hurtubise titled his 1965 paintings with the names of women.” Produced during his most sought-after time period and as eye-catching as it is important, Odette is a spunky reflection of Hurtubise’s unique contribution to abstraction in post-Automatist Quebec.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars