Additional Images

Provenance:

Private Collection, Ontario

Literature:

Yves Lacasse and John R. Porter (general eds.), A History of Art in Quebec, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Quebec, 2004, page 149.

Esther Trépanier, Jewish Painters of Montreal: Witness of their time, 1930-1948, Les Éditions de l'Homme, Montreal, 2008, page 216.

Note:

Esther Trépanier writes: "During the 1950s, Beder was among those artists who maintained a strong attachment to figurative art despite the emergence of abstract movements...Beder nevertheless continued to experiment and in the fifteen years from 1960-1975 he produced a series of sculptures that embodied the more abstract formal explorations."

Waddington's has sold a number of stone sculptures from this period of Jack Beder's (1910-1987) production. However, this is the first work in wood (it is elm) and the largest we have offered to date. Beder was well-steeped in Montreal's artistic milieu and Tree Image (Sculpture #43), 1966 may have drawn inspiration from Armand Vaillancourt's celebrated Durocher Street Elm with which it shares some affinities. This large work was situated on Durocher Street near Sherbrooke Street in Montreal, where Beder resided, and had become something of a cause célèbre. Vaillancourt's creation became associated with artists' issues which would have resonated with Beder, such as the right to public space for art and freedom of expression. Vaillancourt's work was in situ until 1969 and is now in the collection of the Musée du Québec.