Rita Letendre

When Rita Letendre painted Trombe in 1959, she was already regarded in Montreal as a painter of accomplishment and expectation. After leaving Montreal’s École des Beaux-Arts in 1948, frustrated with its attitudes and teaching, Letendre discovered Paul-Émile Borduas and the Automatistes, and made a personal commitment to paint as her metier. She developed quickly and participated in exhibitions organised by Borduas, Claude Gauvreau and Gilles Corbeil. Prodigiously, she had several solo exhibitions by the end of the 1950s, when Robert Ayre complimented her work for becoming firmer and more compact, and the fluency and confidence the work of this period showed.

This is all here in Trombe. Her keen sensitivity to colour and tone give Trombe an intimacy unmatched by some of her peers working on small paintings. Where theirs can suggest a fragment of a larger painting, hers are self-contained worlds. Trombe’s carefully-calibrated white, black, slate blue and greys easily draw one into meditation or reverie. The pulls of paint evoke Jean Paul Riopelle done with care instead of velocity and further her distinct understanding of Borduas to her own ends. Letendre’s style was her own, and what she picked up from Borduas most importantly was his example of being completely immersed in the making of each work. This influenced her commitment to paint and to making art for personal self-knowledge.