The Subterranean, 1961

Moore Gallery, Hamilton Collection of Michael and Elizabeth Brain, Calgary Heffel Fine Art, auction, Toronto, 22 November 2017, lot 12 Private Collection, Toronto

“Rita Letendre: The Montreal Years 1953-1963”, Concordia Art Gallery, Montreal, 19 October - 18 November 1989, no. 26

Sandra Paikowsky, “Rita Letendre: The Montreal Years, 1953–1963”, Montreal, 1989, reproduced page 43 “ICYMI: Remembering Rita Letendre” [online publication], The Art Gallery of Ontario, 24 November 2021, https://ago.ca/agoinsider/ icymi–remembering–rita–letendre

Although the Automatistes were instrumental in the evolution of Rita Letendre’s style, the artist developed a singular vision in her body of work that resulted in a unique style that pushed boundaries of colour, light and space. She won 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. As well, in 1961, Letendre won second prize in the painting category in the Concours artistiques du Québec. As she became better equipped with painting materials and more time to work, she began creating larger canvases with explosions of colour. Her compositions grew to be more personal and carefully planned, and she began anchoring masses with carefully visualized gestures, amid fields of thick impasto. “The Subterranean”, dating to 1961, was completed during this pivotal period of growth in Letendre’s career. The painting is composed of a horizontal row of blue lozenge– like forms in front of a thick band of olive green pigment. Fields of black impasto border the upper and lower edges of the canvas. The title of the piece perhaps references the underground, with earth tones and soil–like black pigment. 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.