Lot 9: William Paterson Ewen 1925 - 2002 Canadian oil on

William Paterson Ewen 1925 - 2002 Canadian oil on canvas Untitled "27 x 30 inches 68.6 x 76.2 centimeters signed and dated 1956 Literature:Matthew Teitelbaum, Paterson Ewen: The Montreal Years, Mendel Art Gallery, 1987, page 20, reproduced page 38 Provenance:By descent to the present Private Collection, Connecticut Exhibited:Parma Gallery, New York, Modern Canadian Painters, 1956 Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, Paterson Ewen: The Montreal Years, November 20, 1987 - January 3, 1988, traveling to the London Regional Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Windsor, Concordia Art Gallery, Montreal and St. Mary's University Art Gallery, Halifax, 1988 During the time of strongly polarized philosophical and aesthetic battles that raged within the Quebec art scene during the late forties and early fifties, Paterson Ewen was blessed with strong connections to both the English and French artistic communities and the various groups that were active at that time. From his earliest days as an art student und r the influence of progressive representational artists like Goodridge Roberts, to his membership in the Association des artistes non-figuratifs de Montréal and his awareness of the Automatist and Plasticien groups, he absorbed their many philosophies and visual strategies without becoming defined by any one of them. It was in 1954 that he first began to show abstract works, and by 1956, when this painting was produced, he had developed his own philosophy and approach to abstraction. Ewen stated, "I'm trying to use the knowledge I've acquired to create a painting as original - as personal - as possible, that will express a point of view in terms of plastic discovery and will have an artistic order. I've chosen this direction because I feel the basic values of all painting are non-figurative." "