Lot 75: William Paterson Ewen 1925 - 2002 Canadian oil on

William Paterson Ewen 1925 - 2002 Canadian oil on canvas Abstract 12 x 16 inches 30.5 x 40.6 centimeters on verso signed Provenance:Acquired directly from the Artist in Montreal by the present Private Collection, London, England In Montreal in the early 1950s, Ewen's work was influenced by the new world of abstraction opened up by the Automatists, with their championing of freedom of gesture and the unconscious, and moved from figurative into abstract work. Through his wife Françoise Sullivan, Ewen met Automatist artists Jean-Paul Mousseau and Claude Gauvreau, who supported him. He was singular in the English-Canadian artistic community in gaining the respect and admiration of his French-Canadian peers, even though he did not formally join either the Automatists or the Plasticiens. In 1955, his abstract works received recognition in one of the most important exhibitions of the decade - Espace 55, at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.