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LOT 001

AUTO CAS QMG RCA
1905 - 1960
Canadian

Sans titre
oil on canvas
signed and dated 1947 and on verso titled Sans titre and Abstraction and dated on the gallery labels
12 1/4 x 8 1/4 in, 31.1 x 21 cm

Estimate: $70,000 - $90,000 CAD

Sold for: $133,250

Preview at: Heffel Toronto – 13 Hazelton Ave

PROVENANCE
Galerie Bernard Desroches, Montreal
Galerie Valentin, Montreal
Private Collection, Edmonton

LITERATURE
Maurice Perron, Photographies, Musée du Québec, 1998, reproduced page 51
Roald Nasgaard, Abstract Painting in Canada, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, 2007, page 66
René Viau and Dorota Kozinska,Paul-Émile Borduas: exposition rétrospective, Galerie Valentin, 2010, reproduced page 12

EXHIBITED
75 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, Second Automatist Exhibition, February 15 - March 1, 1947
Galerie Bernard Desroches, Montreal, The Canadian Avant-garde of the 1950s and 1960s, November 8 - 28, 1989
Galerie Valentin, Montreal, Paul-Émile Borduas: exposition rétrospective, September 11 - 25, 2010, exhibited as Abstraction


This painting is from Paul-Émile Borduas’s Automatist period, just before the group’s publication in 1948 of the Refus global manifesto, which released a flood of controversy. In 1947, his work related to the use of automatic writing in Surrealism –an unconscious process he used in his gouaches, facilitated by the water-based fluidity of that medium. However, when Borduas was working in oil, he faced a problem, because oil did not dry instantaneously. So he worked in two stages. First he painted the background and allowed it to dry. Then, using brush and palette knife, he could intuitively add marks and shapes. In Sans titre, the shapes are aligned like a grid on the surface, “hovering above the pictures’ dream spaces,” as Roald Nasgaard described. The work has a strong figure / ground relationship, in which shapes, implying objects, float over a deep background, the “dream spaces” of Nasgaard’s description. This brightly hued painting is an outstanding example of Borduas’s late 1940s Automatist period.

Sans titre was included in the Automatist group show that took place in February 1947 in the Montreal apartment that Claude Gauvreau shared with his mother. The artists covered the walls in jute and hung the walls Salon style, one painting above the other in rows. It was considered the most impressive of the group’s exhibitions.

This painting is included in François-Marc Gagnon’s online catalogue raisonné on the artist’s work at www.concordia.ca/catalog/2772, catalogue #2005-0807.


Estimate: $70,000 - $90,000 CAD

All prices are in Canadian Dollars


Although great care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the information posted, errors and omissions may occur. All bids are subject to our Terms and Conditions of Business. Bidders must ensure they have satisfied themselves with the condition of the Lot prior to bidding. Condition reports are available upon request.