Quebec abstract painting from the 1960s has been repatriated to Canada

2012-01-17T13:05:00.013-05:00

“Sans titre”, Oil on canvas signed and dated lower right : Ferron 64 162.5 x 129.5 cm, 64 x 51 in.

A very important Quebec abstract painting from the 1960s has been repatriated to Canada. John and Lynda Shearer of the Canadian Art Group, Toronto collectors and dealers specializing in Canadian abstract art were contacted by an American owner of a monumental work painted by Marcelle Ferron in 1964. Realizing the importance and quality of the work the immediately purchased this masterpiece and had it shipped from the American West to Toronto. This work is one of the finest paintings by the artist from her best period.

Marcelle Ferron was born in Louiseville, Quebec in 1924. She is considered one of the dominant figures in contemporary Canadian art. Her career stretched over more than thirty years and from the beginning was been oriented towards the exploration of new avenues in art.

Very early on she joined the group of painters known as the Les Automatistes led by Paul-Emile Borduas. Other painters in the group were Marcel Barbeau, Pierre Gauvreau, Fernand Leduc, Jean-Paul Mousseau, and Jean-Paul Riopelle. This group of artists was bound by their passionate belief in modernism and especially in intellectual freedom. In 1948 they published the manifesto, Refus Global, which was an opportunity to express their deeply held beliefs. 1955 is generally considered the beginning of the Post Automatistes period. It includes artists such as Jean McEwen, Rita Letendre, Lise Gervais, Guy Michon, Guido Molinari, Claude Tousignant, Leon Bellefleur and others. In 1948, she was one of the signing parties of the Refus Global manifesto, a deed which was to bestow new vigour and spirit upon Quebecois cultural life.

In 1953 she moved to Paris, where she worked prodigiously for 13 years producing drawings and paintings and, at the same time, initiating herself into the art of the master glassworker.

Ferron participated in all the Automatiste group exhibitions, including the critically acclaimed retrospective "Borduas et les Automatistes" at the Grand Palais in Paris in 1971. Her work was exhibited in numerous collective exhibitions, both in Europe and the U.S. Including L'Exposition des Surindependants and le Salon des Realites nouvelles in 1956, the Antagonisme show at the Louvre in 1960, and at the Paris Musee Art Moderne in 1962 and 1965. She also represented Quebec at the Sao Paulo Biennial in 1961, the Festival des Deux Mondes in Spoleto, Italy in 1962 and the Osaka Universal Exposition in 1970. Her works have been the subject of more than thirty exhibitions throughout Canada as well as in Paris, Brussels and Munich. In 1970, the Musee Art Contemporain de Montreal staged a retrospective of her work, a show that was repeated in 1972 in Paris at the Canadian Cultural Centre.

Canadian Art Group Painters Eleven

2010-09-28T10:24:00.016-04:00

Painters Eleven was formed in 1953 at the Oshawa home of Alexandra Luke; the formation was the result of a successful show, Abstracts at Home, held at Simpson's department store in Toronto a few months before. Peter Croydon's photograph taken for a show in 1957 at the Park Gallery in Toronto, shown here with kind permission of the photographer and the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, shows left to right: Tom Hodgson, Alexandra Luke, Harold Town, Kazuo Nakamura, Jock Macdonald, Walter Yarwood, Hortense Gordon, Jack Bush, and Ray Mead. The two canvases facing forward represent Oscar Cahen who died in a car crash in 1956 and the canvases facing the wall are for William Ronald who had left the group in 1957 and was now in New York. Disbanded in 1960 all the surviving members went on to continue their careers and remaining true to abstraction.
For a detailed history of the group by Kay Woods, click on this link: http://www.ccca.ca/c/writing/w/woods/woods003t.html
The Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa has an outstanding collection of Painters 11 works.
For examples and bios of the artists go to my website: http://www.painters-eleven.com/

CANADIANART

Quebec abstract painting from the 1960s has been repatriated to Canada

Canadian Art Group Painters Eleven