AANFM ARCA OC QMG
1928 - 2021
Canadian
Impact
oil on canvas
on verso signed, titled and dated 1966 and titled and dated on the exhibition label
30 x 40 in, 76.2 x 101.6 cm
Estimate: $25,000 - $35,000 CAD
Sold for: $31,250
Preview at: Heffel Montreal
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Toronto
LITERATURE
Linda Jansma, Rita Letendre: Beginnings in Abstraction, The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 2005, pages 5 and 6, reproduced pages 28 and 29
Murray White, “Rita Letendre: Against the Dying of the Light,” The Toronto Star, July 8, 2017, https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/visualarts/2017/07/08/rita-letendre-against-the-dying-of-the-light.html, accessed August 12, 2017
EXHIBITED
Galerie Simon Blais, Montreal, Rita Letendre: Ode to Isis, November 26, 2003 - February 7, 2004
The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, Rita Letendre: Beginnings in Abstraction, September 23, 2005 - September 24, 2006
Aside from her brief training at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal, Rita Letendre was primarily a self-taught artist until she met Paul-Émile Borduas at the art school. Their encounter led her to join his circle and to engage with other artists involved in the Québécois art group Les Automatistes. In Impact, black, clean-cut wedge-like forms are juxtaposed against a contrasting white background, and the painting is a prime example of Letendre’s development in the 1960s. As she was transitioning from her previous style of thick impasto and gestural brush-strokes, Letendre adjusted her technique and composition to a more simplified image, as demonstrated here. Nevertheless, this painting contains a vibrant energy, as the arrangement of geometrical forms creates a dynamic tension. Letendre cites this period as fundamental to her signature works of the 1970s, which were composed of lively rays of colour. In response to her recent retrospective at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Toronto Star called the artist “one of the country’s great painters.” Not only is the magnificence of Letendre’s work already acknowledged, the artist’s present-day recognition is flourishing.
Estimate: $25,000 - $35,000 CAD
All prices are in Canadian Dollars
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