Lot 19: RITA LETENDRE, R.C.A., ONLED, 1978, acrylic on canvas, 78 ins x 53.25 ins; 198.1 cms x 135.3 cms

RITA LETENDRE, R.C.A.
ONLED, 1978

acrylic on canvas
signed, titled and dated '78 on the reverse
78 ins x 53.25 ins; 198.1 cms x 135.3 cms


Provenance:
Gifted by Kosso Eloul to Private Collection, Toronto
By descent to Private Collection, Toronto

Rita Letendre established a vital presence in the languages of postwar abstraction. Her paintings of the 1950s and early 1960s were characterized by gestural impasto, an affinity for and association with Paul-Émile Bourduas and the Automatistes. After a 1965 sojourn in California – and her first major public mural, Sunforces at California State University, Long Beach – Letendre’s work became more precise or “hard edged,” and initially near black and white monochromatic. One source suggests a shift due to her first silkscreens, but it also coincided with a period of hard-edge works internationally, as seen in the 1965 MoMA exhibition The Responsive Eye. But unlike much of the optical and constructive tendencies of the time, Letendre’s compositional space expressed a dynamic quality and structure, akin to the c.1911-1913 Futurist “Rayonism” of Mikhael Larianov and Natalia Goncherova.

Nights, 1972 (lot 18) has a dramatic vanishing-point ray with dominant dark and cool graphic colours, whereas in Onled, 1978 (lot 19), a discrete ‘zip’ emerges from the bottom with a counterpoint of softer radiating lines in ochre. Both are classic examples of her studio practice, and used for striking impact in large-scale indoor and outdoor Toronto public commissions in the 1970s. Nights, for Berkshire House, 1971; Onled relates to Irowakan for the Royal Bank Plaza and the painted skylight Joy for the TTC Glencairn Station, both 1977. ¹ Letendre continued this compositional space into the late 1980s. She has stated that her cues for painting are internally generated–a “zen-state" –a way of being, knowing the world, and expressing the life forces of the universe.

Ihor Holubizky is a cultural essayist and art historian. He received his PhD in art history from the University of Queensland.

¹ Joy is the only remaining commissioned work but reinterpreted in 2014. Irowakan is now in the collection of Musée d'art de Joliette. All are illustrated in Rita Letendre: Fire & Light, Art Gallery of Ontario, 2017. Onled also shares strong affinities with the three-metre wide Ononada, 1976. Illustrated pp.40-41

Estimate: $7,000–9,000

78 ins x 53.25 ins; 198.1 cms x 135.3 cms

acrylic on canvas

Gifted by Kosso Eloul to Private Collection, Toronto By descent to Private Collection, Toronto

Rita Letendre established a vital presence in the languages of postwar abstraction. Her paintings of the 1950s and early 1960s were characterized by gestural impasto, an affinity for and association with Paul-Émile Bourduas and the Automatistes. After a 1965 sojourn in California – and her first major public mural, Sunforces at California State University, Long Beach – Letendre’s work became more precise or “hard edged,” and initially near black and white monochromatic. One source suggests a shift due to her first silkscreens, but it also coincided with a period of hard-edge works internationally, as seen in the 1965 MoMA exhibition The Responsive Eye. But unlike much of the optical and constructive tendencies of the time, Letendre’s compositional space expressed a dynamic quality and structure, akin to the c.1911-1913 Futurist “Rayonism” of Mikhael Larianov and Natalia Goncherova. Nights, 1972 (lot 18) has a dramatic vanishing-point ray with dominant dark and cool graphic colours, whereas in Onled, 1978 (lot 19), a discrete ‘zip’ emerges from the bottom with a counterpoint of softer radiating lines in ochre. Both are classic examples of her studio practice, and used for striking impact in large-scale indoor and outdoor Toronto public commissions in the 1970s. Nights, for Berkshire House, 1971; Onled relates to Irowakan for the Royal Bank Plaza and the painted skylight Joy for the TTC Glencairn Station, both 1977. ¹ Letendre continued this compositional space into the late 1980s. She has stated that her cues for painting are internally generated–a “zen-state" –a way of being, knowing the world, and expressing the life forces of the universe. Ihor Holubizky is a cultural essayist and art historian. He received his PhD in art history from the University of Queensland. ¹ Joy is the only remaining commissioned work but reinterpreted in 2014. Irowakan is now in the collection of Musée d'art de Joliette. All are illustrated in Rita Letendre: Fire & Light, Art Gallery of Ontario, 2017. Onled also shares strong affinities with the three-metre wide Ononada, 1976. Illustrated pp.40-41