AANFM ARCA OC QMG
1928 - 2021
Canadian
L’espace d’un moment
oil on canvas
signed and dated 1962 and on verso signed, titled and dated
31 1/4 x 35 1/4 in, 79.4 x 89.5 cm
Estimate: $45,000 - $65,000 CAD
Sold for: $193,250
Preview at:
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Toronto
Canadian Art, BYDealers, May 31, 2018, lot 27
Acquired from the above by the present Private Collection, Montreal
LITERATURE
Anne-Marie Ninacs, Rita Letendre: Aux couleurs du jour, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, 2003, page 87
L’espace d’un moment—which translates to “in the space of a moment” or “a moment in time”—embodies an important and dynamic period in Rita Letendre’s artistic career when she moved away from narrow, mosaic-like compositions indebted to the Automatists’ style and radicalized her singular visual vocabulary. She began to favour broader, more instinctive planes of colour, before later moving on to hard-edged arrows.
Works from this transitionary period explore the dynamism of bringing two masses of colour together. Said Letendre (translated from the French): “I didn’t want these masses to float in space. I wanted them firmly anchored to the frame, in relation to it.… I placed a little reddish-brown paint very close to the black mass. Then, I’d clean my spatula and use it to sweep the colour all at once, making a trace in the black, but not covering it.”
Here, she brings together swathes of brownish orange and black, with dramatic bright green and white sweeps over top, creating a figure-ground relation. The darker background is enlivened by Letendre’s spatula, leaving the surface deeply textured. From 1962 to 1963, Letendre traveled to Europe for the first time, staying in Paris, Italy and Israel. Her travels were incredibly inspiring and brought an intensely creative period for the artist.
Estimate: $45,000 - $65,000 CAD
All prices are in Canadian Dollars
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