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Inventory # A19F-E18266-001

ARCA
1934 - 2000
Canadian

Gris, bleu
acrylic on canvas
on verso signed, titled and dated mai/juin 1971
58 1/4 x 42 1/2 in, 148 x 107.9 cm

PROVENANCE
Galerie Godard Lefort, Montreal
Private Collection, Montreal

LITERATURE
Michel Ragon (from the French), “Yves Gaucher: Rêverie de l’absolu,’’ Perspective 1963 - 1976, Yves Gaucher: Peintures et gravures, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, 1976, page 19
Yves Gaucher quoted in Roald Nasgaard, Yves Gaucher: Life & Work, 2015, “Two Blues, Two Greys, 1976,” para. 2, https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/yves-gaucher/key-works/two-blues-two-greys, accessed August 28, 2019


“Certain Quebecers believe they can find Nordic greys in Gaucher’s paintings. It’s a way to hang onto a kind of naturalism, which seems irrelevant to me. In fact, even if Gaucher works in Montreal, he could be elsewhere. His painting is outside of time and outside of space, as are Mallarmé, Webern and John Cage.”

— Michel Ragon

Following his Grey on Grey series, produced from December 1967 to October 1969 and totaling more than 60 works, Yves Gaucher sought to rethink his approach to painting. He wanted to “blow it all up and think—pick up the pieces and examine them one by one, save what was worthwhile and throw away what wasn’t anymore and start again.” Whereas the previous series consisted of monochromes, each showcasing a different tonality of the colour grey, his 1971 works introduced different shades of grey within the same composition. Gris, bleu is a stunning example of this production. The work is divided into two sections, one grey and one blue-grey, traversed by crisp white lines. Solemn and engulfing, this work reveals the luminosity and interaction of the ever-so-subtly different shades of grey, a tone of which Gaucher once said “contains all colors and all emotional states.” This immersive field of sumptuous colour is a testament to the artist’s technical skill and refined visual sensibility.

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