signed and dated 1976 lower left; signed and dated on the reverse
18 x 22 in (45.7 x 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.
Christian Marcel Barbeau - Abstract, 1976 | Cowley Abbott
