Rita Letendre (1928-2021) is one of Canada’s leading abstract painters...and one of Caviar20's favourite artists.
Early in her career, Letendre was associated with Les Automatistes (which included Borduas and Riopelle amongst others) in Montreal's avant-garde circles of the 1950s. However in the 1960's her aesthetic transformed dramatically as she embraced hard-edge abstraction. Her marriage to Kosso Eloul arguably had a tremendous impact on her artistic production, and for a number of years their artistic output shared many similarities.
Around 1980, her style loosened significantly from her iconic chevron works that characterized the 1970s. Letendre began working more frequently on paper, and her aesthetic revisited some of the gestural techniques and formal approaches similar to when she launched her career in Montreal. By the 1990s her work became frequently atmospheric albeit realized with rich saturated colors.
"Winter's Morning" is a beautiful example of Letendre's later atmospheric paintings. Executed in oil on canvas, the composition is built from softly shifting fields of grey, white, blue and pale pink. Rather than defining a recognizable landscape, Letendre suggests one through the movement and density of her brushwork.
Broad passages of paint drift across the surface, while darker strokes gather along the upper edge and sweep diagonally through the composition, creating a sense of movement and depth. Delicate pinks and icy blues emerging from a predominantly grey palette, lending the painting an unmistakably wintry atmosphere, while the luminous central passage evokes the diffuse light of a winter morning.
Letendre's long-standing fascination with light, movement and colour is expressed through a loose, gestural vocabulary in this work. The painting occupies an intriguing space between landscape and abstraction: the suggestion of sky, snow and horizon is present, but never fixed. Instead, the landscape seems to dissolve into the physical act of painting itself. This balance between natural sensation and abstraction remained central to Letendre's mature practice, in which colour could evoke both a particular atmosphere and a more expansive emotional experience.
Nearly every major institution in Canada has examples of her work in their permanent collections including the National Gallery, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the Art Gallery of Ontario.
Questions about this piece? Contact us, call +1.416.704.1720, or visit our Toronto Gallery.
"Orage II / Jour"
Canada, 1992
Pastel on paper
Signed, titled, and dated in pencil
12"H 17"W (work)
13"H 18"W (framed)
Very good condition
Note: the price is $9,500 CAD
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