HEFFEL FINE ART AUCTION HOUSE 81

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1 HEFFEL FINE ART AUCTION HOUSE 81 62

2 HEFFEL FINE ART AUCTION HOUSE 82 63

3 HEFFEL FINE ART AUCTION HOUSE RITA LETENDRE ARCA OC QMG 1928 ~ Les nuits oil on canvas, signed and dated 1962 and on verso signed, titled and dated 36 1/2 x 49 1/2 in, 92.7 x cm M. Gérard Lortie, Montreal LITERATURE: The National Gallery of Canada, Cybermuse, a related work entitled Atara, 1963, reproduced at search/artwork_e.jsp?mkey=910 (accessed February 21, 2011) Painted during an intense and pivotal period in Rita Letendre s distinguished career, Les nuits is one of several images from the early 1960s that show both her connection to the most radical currents in Canadian art of the time and her independent style of abstract painting. She studied under Paul~Émile Borduas in Montreal and exhibited with the Automatists in the 1950s. Some years later, Letendre exhibited with the artists who later formed Quebec s equally influential group of abstractionists, the Plasticiens. Les nuits articulates a powerful visual language that is also developed in related paintings such as Atara, 1963, in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada, and Rencontre en flammé, 1962, lot 62 in this sale. These canvases share a bold contrast of light and dark that Letendre employs to create a cave~like depth. Against these deep and mysterious areas she opposes a playful and electrifying blue and white motif that is surrounded by flame~like forms. While these elements are used in several works, each painting is strikingly individual because of the ways that the central forms behave. Les nuits is especially dynamic, with the left~of~centre blue figure seeming to extend itself to the right by flinging a small blue messenger into the void. Letendre s gesture with the palette knife is clearly visible here, yet the shape takes on its own life. The canvas suggests a struggle of forms but also registers the ultimate emergence of the blue motif. Les nuits implies the presence of primordial forces. We thank Mark Cheetham, Professor of Art History at the University of Toronto, for contributing the above essay. ESTIMATE: $40,000 ~ 60,000

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5 HEFFEL FINE ART AUCTION HOUSE JEAN~PAUL RIOPELLE AUTO CAS OC QMG RCA SCA 1923 ~ 2002 Lumière du nord oil on canvas, signed and on verso titled, dated 1957 and inscribed B2 18 x 21 5/8 in, 45.7 x 54.9 cm Galerie Camille Hébert, Montreal Acquired on April 4, 1963 for $2,000 by LITERATURE: Gilbert Érouart, Riopelle In Conversation, translated by Donald Winkler, with an interview by Fernand Séguin, 1995, page 36 EXHIBITED: Galerie Camille Hébert, Montreal, Riopelle, January 14 ~ February 6, 1963, catalogue #1 Jean~Paul Riopelle was the most internationally acclaimed Canadian artist of his generation. His impeccable credentials as a radical painter began in Quebec and include studying with Paul~Émile Borduas, membership in the Automatists from the 1940s, and being a signatory to the liberatory cultural manifesto Refus global of In Europe, he attracted the attention of Surrealist leader André Breton and, at his invitation, was the only Canadian to show at the International Exhibition of Surrealism in France in While Riopelle lived in Paris from 1947 until returning to Quebec much later in his life, Lumière du nord s title perhaps suggests his constant affinity for Canada, even during the decade when, in France, the explosive strokes and prismatic spectrum of colour that we witness in this canvas ~ applied vigorously with the palette knife ~ became his signature style. Riopelle s work from this defining period was central to the Lyrical Abstraction movement developing in France in the 1950s. His wide recognition at this time extended to his presence at the São Paulo Bienal in 1951 and 1955 and the Venice Biennale in 1954 and Riopelle often expressed his admiration for Claude Monet s late paintings of water lilies. We would not confuse Lumière du nord with Monet s evanescent visions of water, plants, reflections and hue from his pond in Giverny, yet Riopelle s painting extends the concatenation of nature s procreative forces into a dynamic but ultimately clear whole. The painting abstracts from the appearances of nature as Monet s do not, yet Riopelle was never doctrinaire about his method: There s only one thing you must not do, he has said, and that s to live for abstraction. You must live through things. His work was never as literary as the Surrealists would have liked. It was abstraction based on nature in a way that Monet himself might have appreciated. It is above all light that Riopelle lived through and that lives in the dramatic surface of Lumière du nord. The bold white forms that burst out from the centre of his composition do not form a motif or figure so much as a force field. With power, though not aggression, they extend over and combine in places with the green, raspberry and blue hues of the canvas. Lumière du nord contains passages of relative tranquility ~ the smooth and quite undisturbed zone of green along the bottom and the equally calm blue corner in the upper right ~ which contrast effectively with areas of passionate painterly activity focused in the centre of the work. Riopelle defies scale in his paintings; one can with equal pleasure and impact look very closely at the interactions of forms and colours and stand back to perceive the remarkable power of the whole. In this painting, Riopelle characteristically contains a formidable procreative force within a relatively confined surface. We thank Mark Cheetham, Professor of Art History at the University of Toronto, for contributing the above essay. This work will be included as an addendum to Volume II in Yseult Riopelle s catalogue raisonné on the artist s work, inventory # H. ESTIMATE: $90,000 ~ 120,000

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7 HEFFEL FINE ART AUCTION HOUSE LAWREN STEWART HARRIS ALC BCSFA CGP FCA G7 OSA RPS TPG 1885 ~ 1970 Sketch Painted in Santa Fe, New Mexico oil on board, signed and on verso signed, titled, dated 1944 and on a label 1938 ~ 1940, inscribed Bess Harris Collection / Sketch / C11 and inscribed on a label Lawren Harris Collection of Sketches and Drawings (Selected by Bess Harris) / Collection #64 / National Gallery of Canada, and signed on the label by Bess Harris 14 7/8 x 16 1/4 in, 37.8 x 41.3 cm Collection of Bess Harris LITERATURE: Bess Harris and R.G.P. Colgrove, Lawren Harris, 1969, the 1941 canvas Composition #1, in the collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, reproduced page 105 Dennis Reid, Atma Buddhi Manas: The Later Work of Lawren S. Harris, Art Gallery of Ontario, 1985, the 1941 canvas Composition #1, in the collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, reproduced page 79 Peter Larisey, Light for a Cold Land, Lawren Harris s Work and Life ~ An Interpretation, 1993, the 1941 canvas Composition #1, in the collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, reproduced plate 44 In 1938, Sante Fe, New Mexico was an important artist colony and, during a visit, Lawren Harris was so enthralled with its creative atmosphere that he soon moved there. Finding a group of artists who believed, as he did, in a spiritual form of abstraction, he became a co~founder of the Transcendental Painting Group. This stunning oil sketch incorporates all the principles and pictorial elements important to Harris at that time. Cool and cerebral, it is painted with light~filled planes from which emerge precise geometric shapes. At the top floats a hieratic form ~ the triangle ~ a form much used by Harris going back to his Rocky Mountain landscapes, but now distilled to an abstract symbol. It is the embodiment of what Harris sought ~ the pure realm of the spirit. In the fall of 1940, the discovery that funds could not be transferred out of Canada due to World War II forced Harris s return to Canada. The masterwork canvas of this image, Composition #1, in the collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, is believed to be the first painting he produced after moving to Vancouver. The label on verso of this painting refers to a project by Bess Harris who selected works for the National Gallery of Canada, of which this work was one. However, this project never came to fruition. ESTIMATE: $40,000 ~ 60, JACQUES GODEFROY DE TONNANCOUR ARCA CAS CGP PY QMG 1917 ~ Fall Landscape oil on board, signed and dated x 23 3/4 in, 40.6 x 60.3 cm Alfred Pellan was the leader of the Prisme d yeux; however, it was Jacques de Tonnancour who was the author of their manifesto, which was written in 1948 and signed by 13 artists. Prisme d yeux was not intended to be a cohesive movement; rather it was seen as an alternative to Automatism. The group sought to be more inclusive of the varying aesthetic styles of art and called for an art that was free of restrictive ideology. ESTIMATE: $4,000 ~ 6,000

8 HEFFEL FINE ART AUCTION HOUSE RITA LETENDRE ARCA OC QMG 1928 ~ Un cauchemar oil on canvas, signed and dated 1961 and on verso inscribed /4 x 14 1/8 in, 31.1 x 35.9 cm 67 LITERATURE: Roald Nasgaard, Abstract Painting in Canada, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, 2007, page 180 With their exploration of movement and form, Rita Letendre s paintings of the early 1960s began to distinguish themselves from her earlier works of the Automatist period. Roald Nasgaard states of these works, A sense of turbulent drama was intensified by brighter colours pushing, as if seeking liberation against masses of black. ESTIMATE: $9,000 ~ 12,000

9 HEFFEL FINE ART AUCTION HOUSE JEAN ALBERT MCEWEN AANFM RCA 1923 ~ 1999 Icone oil on canvas, signed and on verso signed and titled, circa x 11 in, 30.5 x 27.9 cm 68 EXHIBITED: Galerie Agnès Lefort, Montreal In the fall of 1963, Jean McEwen traveled to Greece, visiting Crete and the island of Rhodes. McEwen was intrigued by the Byzantine icons he saw there and decided to bring one home as a souvenir. This icon was influential in his subsequent work, as seen in this radiant painting, aptly titled Icone. ESTIMATE: $7,000 ~ 9,000

10 HEFFEL FINE ART AUCTION HOUSE ALFRED PELLAN CAS OC PY QMG RCA 1906 ~ 1988 Soucoupes volantes oil on board, signed and on verso signed, titled and inscribed /8 x 17 5/8 in, 32.7 x 44.8 cm LITERATURE: Roald Nasgaard, Abstract Painting in Canada, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, 2007, page 59 Alfred Pellan studied, lived and worked in Paris from On his return to Canada in 1940 after the German invasion of Paris, he was hailed as a hero who would aid in ending conservatism and academism in Quebec. Artist Jacques de Tonnancour claimed, What French~Canadian art needed in order to be resurrected after these centuries of lethargic slumber was a vigorous blow from the outside and Pellan provided that blow. In 1948, Pellan founded the Prisme d yeux group to encourage diversity and counter the dominant influence of the Automatists. Pellan s work was informed by various European influences such as Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, Primitivism and, most significantly, Surrealism. Soucoupes volantes, or Flying Saucers, embodies Pellan s unique use of associative dream imagery. Groups of people express amazement at these strange craft in the skies, depicted by ovals and round forms activated by an inner energy force. Typical of Pellan is the flamboyant use of colour and the depiction of the transformative space of the unconscious. Inventive and fantastic, Soucoupes volantes contains a dimension of interaction and transformation between human experience and the unknown. ESTIMATE: $15,000 ~ 20,000 69