Terre feconde, 1961

Dorothy Cameron Gallery, Toronto Private Collection, Toronto

“ICYMI: Remembering Rita Letendre” [online publication], The Art Gallery of Ontario, 24 November 2021

Beginning as an Automatiste painter in the 1950s, Rita Letendre was influenced by Paul-Émile Borduas' revolutionary gestural abstract paintings of the period. Although the Automatistes were instrumental in the evolution of her style, Letendre developed a singular vision in her body of work that resulted in a unique style that pushed boundaries of colour, light and space. After being exposed to the major figures of the Plasticiens movement in the mid-1950s, Letendre began experimenting with more structured and geometric compositions. However, by the end of the decade, she returned to a gestural approach, inspired by the Abstract Expressionists in New York–particularly the black and white paintings of Franz Kline. Her production began to increase, winning first prize in the Concours de la Jeune Peinture in 1959 and the Prix Rodolphe-de-Repentigny in 1960. This prize and the additional sales that followed would allow Letendre to dedicate herself to painting full-time. Always experimenting, she worked in all media while regarding representation in art as “a crutch”. “Terre feconde”, dating to 1961, was completed during this pivotal period of growth in Letendre’s career. As she became better equipped with painting materials and more time to work, she began creating larger canvases with explosions of colour. Also in 1961, Letendre won second prize in the painting category in the Concours artistiques du Québec. Her compositions grew to be more personal and carefully planned, and she began anchoring masses with carefully visualized gestures, amid fields of thick impasto. Dramatic and evocative, “Terre feconde” is composed of a horizontal row of yellow lozenge-like forms in front of a thick curtain of black pigment. Fields of olive green border the upper and lower edges of the canvas, and a floating blue rectangular form provides a contrasting pop of colour to the otherwise moody composition. On her use of colour and light, the artist claimed: “Light and colour, and sometimes the absence of colour, have always been the key elements in my painting. With its different values, colour reflects the shades of life. But light, from the first shock of birth to the last breath of life – light is life.” The title of the piece translates to “Fertile Land”, which is perhaps referenced in the abundant amount of paint and the green grass-like area along the lower edge. However, Letendre’s paintings at the time were very much still based in Automatism rather than on a particular subject. She stated, “My thoughts, my attitudes are automatist, which means that I have no set formula. My paintings are completely emotional, full of hair-trigger intensity. Through them, I challenge space and time. I paint freedom, escape from the here and now, from the mundane...The world isn’t only what we see or what we experience.” The 1960s was a decade of well-deserved recognition for Letendre’s work, beginning with a solo exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 1961. In 1962, Letendre received a Canada Council Grant, and travelled with Ulysse Comtois to Europe, visiting Paris, Rome and then Israel. As the Automatiste group and its affiliates began to abandon their commitment to spontaneity in favour of a more controlled and deliberate structure, Letendre chose to maintain the impulsive and expressive brushstrokes in her work. Letendre kept a fairly consistent palette of dramatic colours, often with large masses of black, until the mid-1960s when she took a decisive shift into geometric compositions once again.