Sold for: $73,250

PROVENANCE
A gift from the Artist to Noël Lajoie, Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux, France
Private Collection, Toronto

As one of the original 16 signatories of Paul-Émile Borduas’s iconoclastic Refus global manifesto, Marcelle Ferron was committed to the aesthetic and artistic goals underlying the Automatists - in particular, the use of gesture as an essential element of authentic artistic expression. This exceptional diptych is a fine example of the techniques she was developing in the 1960s while she was based in Paris. The artist would build up layers of colour over a pure white ground, thickly applying paint directly from the tube (when she was not mixing pigments herself) and creating broad, sweeping strokes using a variety of palette knives.

After more than a decade in Paris, Ferron returned in 1966 to Quebec, where she became fascinated by the potential of stained glass as a medium; she would work exclusively with it for the next two decades. This painting, produced near the end of her time in France, brilliantly demonstrates that Ferron’s practice was already grounded in an intense interest in light and colour. Here, the jewel-like tones and flashing radiance transcend the material qualities of paint to create an exceptionally vibrant, expressive work.

The left canvas measures 18 1/4 x 15 1/8 inches, and the right canvas 18 1/2 x 14 7/8 inches.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars