Lot 20: Paul-Émile Borduas 1905 - 1960 Canadian oil on

Paul-Émile Borduas 1905 - 1960 Canadian oil on canvas La danseuse jaune et la bête 18 1/2 x 22 inches 47 x 55.9 centimeters signed and dated 1943 and on verso titled on the Dominion Gallery label Literature:Robert Élie, Borduas, 1943, reproduced page 14 Claude Jasmin, ""Du lyrisme incandescent à la tragédie classique"", La Presse, Arts and Letters, January 20, 1962, page 5, titled as Danseuse jaune Guy Robert, Borduas, 1972, cited and reproduced pages 107 and 325 Guy Robert, Borduas ou le dilemme culturel québécois, 1977, reproduced page 163 François-Marc Gagnon, Paul-Émile Borduas (1905 - 1960), Biographie critique et analyse de l'oeuvre, 1978, pages 148, 152, no. 49, 155, 203, 215, 475, 479 and 539 and reproduced figure 35 Provenance:M. and Mme. Luc Choquette, Montreal Dominion Gallery, Montreal Acquired from the above by the present Private Collector, Toronto, 1970 Exhibited:Dominion Gallery, Exposition Borduas, October 2 - 13, 1943, catalogue #51 Cercle universitaire, Exposition de peinture canadienne, February 1947 Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Some Modern Canadians, August 1 - August 30, 1953 Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Paul-Émile Borduas, 1905 - 1960, January 11 - February 11, 1962, traveling in 1962 to the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, The Art Gallery of Toronto and Musée du Québec, catalogue #42 Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Paul-Émile Borduas Retrospective, May 6 - September 11, 1988, catalogue #37 La danseuse jaune et la bête was exhibited for the first time at the Dominion Gallery, Montreal, in 1943. This exhibition was much anticipated, because after the brilliant 1942 show of 45 Surrealist gouache works at l'Ermitage, Collège de Montréal, collectors, critics and amateurs were asking themselves what Paul-Émile Borduas could do in the medium of oil. After all, gouache was an easier medium to manipulate than oil. How was it possible to transpose into the medium of oil, the spontaneity of inspiration and the vivacity of colours which had been so evident in gouache? In fact, Borduas took some time to find the solution. Gouache is a fast-drying medium - you could paint a whole work in gouache in a relatively short period of time. Moreover, the fact that water has a strong surface tension makes it possible to juxtapose well-defined areas of colour without risking the seeping of one colour into the other. To obtain the same effect in oil, the artist would have to wait long periods between each colour application, since oil is a slow-drying medium. It was difficult in these circumstances to maintain the unity of inspiration obtained in the gouache. On the other hand, since the surface tension of oil is much lower than that of water, the line between two adjacent areas of oil colour tended to be blurred. The solution, envisaged by Borduas in 1943, was to abandon completely the traditional division between line and colour that was still prevalent in the gouaches. Borduas first painted a rather dark background, as seen here in La danseuse jaune et la bête, and let it dry for a few days. On this perfectly dry background he then painted freely (and rapidly) the objects - the yellow dancer on the right and the beast on the left - which are detached from the background. In other words, he adopted a formula close to landscape, where some objects - trees, animals or people, for instance - detach themselves from a background that recedes behind them. In La danseuse jaune et la bête, the reminiscence of the gouaches is still very strong. The objects do not detach themselves from the background as clearly as they will do later on (as in Carquois fleuris, 1947, or Parachutes végétaux, 1947, respectively at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa). One more comment about the title. As with other paintings of Borduas's Automatist period, La danseuse jaune et la bête was completely non-preconceived, that is to say it had no subject matter to begin with. It is only after the fact that Borduas gave it a title. The title is then just a possible reading of the painting, not the reflection of the painter's intention. Nevertheless, it is possible, as I said before, to distinguish two forms facing each other - one more feminine, the other more menacing - a Surrealist interpretation of The Beauty and the Beast! Maybe it is this transitional character - between the gouaches of 1942 and the oils of 1943 and later - that had attracted his first collector, the pharmacist Luc Choquette, to La danseuse jaune et la bête. He belonged, with Gérard Lortie, Gérard Beaulieu, Maurice Corbeil and Jo Barcelo, to the first generation of French Canadian collectors who became clients of the Dominion Gallery. Encouraged by the critic Maurice Gagnon, they were ready to take some risks and built very fine collections. Luc Choquette had discriminating taste and it is a plus that this work was once owned by him. We thank François-Marc Gagnon of the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute of Studies in Canadian Art, Concordia University, for contributing the above essay. The consignor will donate the proceeds from the sale of this work to Canadian charities.