signed and dated 1976 lower left; signed and dated on the reverse
18 × 22 in (45.7 × 55.9 cm)
Auction Estimate:$3,000 - $5,000
Sale date:June 15, 2022
Price Realized
$3,120
(including Buyer's Premium)
Provenance
Private Collection, Ontario
Literature
Roald Nasgaard, “Abstract Painting in Canada”, Vancouver/Toronto, 2008, page 75
In this work from 1976, Marcel Barbeau returns to the all-over abstraction of the 1950s in a more intimate format. Barbeau was close with Riopelle, Mousseau, Borduas and Gauvreau, and for a time, shared a studio with Riopelle. Describing the beginning of Barbeau’s venture into abstraction with these other artists, Roald Nasgaard writes, “Together, these artists experimented with a variety of automatic methods, making frenetic informal, non-figurative paintings, in effect creating their own version of action painting, independent of what was happening in New York and Europe, if, as always, on a much smaller scale.” After a period of hard-edge kinetic abstraction in the 1960s, Barbeau has returned to the abstraction of his career where he employs drips, splatters, slashes, and daubs of colour reminiscent of earlier work.
