Lot 3
RITA LETENDRE, R.C.A.
Additional Images
Provenance:
Private Collection, Ontario
Note:
Though originally hard-edge, by 1971, Rita Letendre's introduction to the airbrush meant that the radiating bands of colour with which she is associated with began to develop a softness where they met at the adjoining bands' edge. Some critics interpret this as a return to the "atmospheric notions" Letendre had been investigating during her Automatiste period and remark upon "luminous modulations which electrify the canvas," as seen in this lot. According to Canadian curator and art historian Dennis Reid, Letendre stopped using the airbrush in 1996.
In this particular piece, Letendre’s signature “zip” makes the most subtle of appearances, stretching horizontally across the bottom of the composition, while it is the soft bands of colour vibrating across the upper levels of the canvas which command our attention.