Rita Letendre: Day in March

Rita Letendre emerged in Montreal between the 1940s breakthrough of the Automatistes and the 1960s ascent of the Plasticiens. By assimilating Paul-Émile Borduas’ inclination to immerse himself in the making of each work, Letendre claimed paint as her métier and achieved self-knowledge through making art.

Day in March was painted in the most dynamic and exciting period in Letendre’s career as she was developing her pictorial language and working through the examples of Borduas and Jean Paul Riopelle. Like them, Letendre’s commitment to making art for personal self-knowledge never wavered for the remaining half century of her career even as her painterly styles changed.

Day in March achieves immense scale with the limited palette Letendre preferred during this period and to which she would return in her final bodies of work. The particulars of the palette changed from painting to painting; the palette of Day in March includes chrome yellow, ultramarine, teal (likely the chrome yellow and ultramarine mixed), white, and black. Letendre first painted in a field of black and white, deliberately wet-in-wet, into which she thatched strokes of teal and yellow. Penultimately, she added the three angular black forms in the top right, centre left, and bottom right that dance across the surface accented by final draws of yellow that pulled and incorporated the wet paint below.

A dynamic painting from a dynamic moment in the artist’s career, Day in March demonstrates how Letendre broke from Riopelle, how she was still reckoning with Borduas as the forms in her breakthrough 1961 abstractions developed in front of us, and how her career-long pursuit of light was honest and personal.

Gregory Humeniuk is an art historian, consultant, writer and curator based in Toronto.

auction & preview information

Day in March (lot 209) is featured in our major fall Canadian & International Fine Art auction. The auction also features a Lake Superior canvas by Lawren Harris, a charming composition by Jean Paul Lemieux, an urban scene by Peter Clapham Sheppard and three iconic sculptures by British artist Lynn Chadwick. Other notable artists represented in this auction include James Wilson Morrice, Jean McEwen, David Hockney, and Shirin Neshat.

Previews will be available at our new Toronto gallery, located at 100 Broadview Avenue, just south of Queen Street East:

Saturday, November 23 from 12 pm to 4 pm
Sunday, November 24 from 12 pm to 4 pm
Monday, November 25 from 10 am to 5 pm
Tuesday, November 26 from 10 am to 5 pm
Or by appointment.

Contact us for more information.