Sans titre

Provenance:
Estate of the Artist

Exhibitions:
L'Échourie, Montreal, Plasticiens, February 11 - March 2, 1955

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Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Jauran et les premiers Plasticiens, 1977

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Galerie Simon Blais, Montreal, Hommage aux premiers Plasticiens, April 13 - May 14, 2005

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Musée des beaux-arts de Sherbrooke, Les Plasticiens, June 11 - October 2, 2005

Literature:
Yves Lacasse and John R. Porter, editors, The Collection of the Musée des beaux-arts du Québec: A History of Art in Quebec, 2004, essay by Pierre Landry, page 152
Notes:
Before becoming a founding member of the Plasticien group and an influential painter, Rodolphe de Repentigny was already a respected art critic for La Presse. In 1955, under the pseudonym Jauran, alongside Louis Belzile, Jean-Paul Jérôme and Fernand Toupin, de Repentigny wrote and launched the Plasticien manifesto which led to a new avant-garde movement in response to Automatism. With Piet Mondrian as their inspiration, what the Plasticiens cared about most were the plastic elements which unified their painting in a controlled way - colour, shade, texture, line and form - therefore ridding their painting of the expressive and intuitive characteristics that were central to Automatism.

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De Repentigny died at the age of 33 in a mountain climbing accident in 1959. Even though he produced few works, the impact of his oeuvre was great, and the reverberations of his influence long-standing. This important and rare geometric abstract work was exhibited during the first Plasticien show at L'Échourie in 1955 and is perhaps the largest painting he ever produced. Pierre Landry wrote, "Jauran's painted oeuvre, based on Plasticien theory, served as a catalyst to the development of an abstract geometric style in Quebec that remained current into the 1970s and beyond."