AANFM RCA
1923 - 1999
Canadian
Laque d'un pays vaste #9
acrylic on canvas
on verso signed, titled and dated 1972
40 x 40 in, 101.6 x 101.6 cm
Estimate: $25,000 - $35,000 CAD
Sold for: $28,125
Preview at: Heffel North Vancouver Facility – by appointment only
PROVENANCE
Marlborough-Godard, Toronto
Private Collection, Ontario
LITERATURE
Roald Nasgaard, Abstract Painting in Canada, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, 2007, page 177
Montreal artist Jean McEwen was one of the most influential artists of his generation, known as a master colourist. In this sensuous and beautiful work, McEwen shows his command of colour and spatial dynamics. Using a format typical of this series from 1972, McEwen worked with a central square that hovers against a “frame” clouded with warm pink and copper tones against dark underpaint. The artist comprehended space entirely through colour - the central square pops forward but is dimensional within its field, and clouds of emerald and greenish-white paint float to the surface over bronze tones. Areas of opaque and transparent paint create contrast, and paler colours generate light. McEwen layered his pigment, as Roald Nasgaard described, “as if his surfaces had been formed, like the earth’s crust, of matter shaped by unseen geologies of folds and faults.” McEwen used titles for his works that suggest poetic associations rather than a literal translation. Laque d'un pays vaste #9, containing references to “lacquer” and “a vast country,” connects to both the materiality of the painting’s surface and Nasgaard’s concept of an abstracted geology, and it is a stunning example from this series.
Estimate: $25,000 - $35,000 CAD
All prices are in Canadian Dollars
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