signed and dated "9 April 1994 " lower left; inscribed "4" on the stretcher on the reverse
40 × 65 in (101.6 × 165.1 cm)
Acquired directly from the Artist
Private Collection, Montreal, circa 1994
Galerie l'Héritage Contemporain, Montreal
Private Collection, Montreal
Jean-Paul Jérôme was a Quebec painter and one of the important figures in the development of geometric abstraction in Canada. In 1955, Jérôme co-founded Les Plasticiens with Louis Belzile, Fernand Toupin and art critic and painter Rodolphe de Repentigny, who worked under the name Jauran. Their manifesto emphasized the formal elements of painting—colour, line, texture and shape—as subjects in their own right. This approach differed from the more spontaneous, gestural abstraction associated with the Automatistes. Rather than using colour primarily to represent the natural world or convey a narrative, Jérôme explored its relationships with geometric forms, lines and the picture plane. He lived in Paris from 1956 to 1958, where he encountered a range of European modernist artists, including Victor Vasarely, Alberto Giacometti and Hans Hartung. This experience broadened his engagement with abstraction and the expressive possibilities of colour and form.
Jérôme’s paintings, including this vibrant abstraction, often feature carefully organized compositions in which the interaction of colour and shape creates visual rhythm, balance and movement. Here, the artist has arranged colourful geometric forms, predominantly in contrasting black and white and complementary colours orange and blue.
