About —
Rita Letendre’s art career consisted of periods in constant and contrasting evolution. Early, her works were gestural, as she experimented with various marks and application of thick layers of paint. Later, her expression metamorphosed into series of straight lines, at first highly calculated and later freer and more animated. Although she transformed her overall style, it was always based on a dark, often black, underlying structure that immediately galvanized the surface. This organizational system fostered the surging of light and a tumultuous energy. Inspired by the immanence of nature and life, conveyed by an obvious attachment to the landscape, Letendre takes us along the contours of roads and skies in motion or draws us into cavernous shoals.
The Musée has been planning this exhibition of Letendre’s work for several years; to our regret, it is now taking place in the form of a posthumous tribute to this great feminist painter, who died last year. Among the few women artists of her generation, she helped to open the door for those who followed her. In a spirit of sisterhood, we have paired with her early works a selection of paintings by Québec women artists of her own generation and by younger artists who, like her, have adopted abstraction as a means of expression.
The exhibition, composed entirely of works from the Musée’s collection, offers a look at a half-century of the career of Letendre, who loved freedom, travelled overseas, and lived on the west coast of the United States before moving to Toronto, where she settled permanently. Following her techniques and aspirations, the show begins with her early works, produced according to the precepts of abstraction formulated by Paul-Émile Borduas— precepts that she never entirely abandoned—and continues up to her late production.
Letendre’s art made its way into our collection thanks to the Clercs de Saint-Viateur, the founders of the MAJ, who acquired a painting of hers in 1968. Almost fifty years later, her son, Jacques Letendre, and his partner, Monique Larocque, donated a group of works intended to complement the corpus that the Musée was gradually building. As we were organizing this exhibition, we noted that our collection includes a large tapestry that is a unique piece in her career. This is certainly the not only mystery reserved for us by Letendre, a prolific artist who was engaged in an endless search of self-discovery.
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Biography —
Rita Letendre, born in 1928 in Drummondville, attended the École des beaux-arts de Montréal and took part in many of the Automatiste group’s exhibitions in the 1950s. A painter and printmaker, she is known for the many indoor and outdoor murals that she produced in Canada and the United States. In 2010, she received the Governor General’s Award. Her works are found in numerous public and private collections throughout the country. She died last November in Toronto.
Image in the banner:
Views from the Fall opening at the Musée d’art de Joliette, 2022. Photo: Romain Guilbault
Rita Letendre, Influx, 1968, Acrylic on canvas, 52.4 x 227.7 x 2.8 cm. Gift of Jacques Letendre and Monique Laroque. 2017.017. © Succession Rita Letendre