Rita Letendre

Early life

Rita Letendre was born the eldest of seven children to Anne-Marie Ledoux and Héliodore Letendre in Drummondville, Quebec. Despite Héliodore working as a mechanic and obtaining trucking contracts when possible, life for them was difficult and the family lived in poverty. Following a serious injury to one of her fingers in 1931, Rita was sent to live with her maternal grandmother in Saint-Francois-du-Lac. There, she thrived in a more relaxed atmosphere where she could play, read, pick flowers, take boat rides and more importantly, escape her turbulent home life. The planned visit was to last for a year but continued until she was old enough to attend school. At school, Rita was fascinated, this being her first opportunity to be stimulated intellectually. In 1935, the family moved to Saint-Majorique-de-Grantham, near Drummondville, where integration to the community was difficult – here, she and her siblings (being of Abenaki heritage on their father’s side) experienced the prejudices experienced by many First Nations children that were incessant and often violent. Although she learned to defend herself well, she ultimately preferred solitude. To escape the hate that surrounded her, she created her own happier worlds, drawn in her schoolbooks. In 1941, the family moved back to Drummondville where she enrolled in her first year of high school but before she could return for a second year, the family moved to downtown Montreal and Rita had to stay home to take care of her five younger siblings while both of her parents took jobs for the war effort. This period of her life was a blessing in disguise; she continued drawing in the evenings, she was able to devour books as fast as she could get her hands on them, she discovered Opera on the radio which became a lifelong love, and she discovered famous master works of art in books at the library which she had heard about on the radio. By 1946 she was desperate to escape her family duties; first taking a factory job, then working as a restaurant cashier, she left home to live with her boyfriend with whom she had a son, Jacques. It did not last and Rita separated from Jacques' father — Jacques was eventually raised by his maternal Grandmother.

École des Beaux-Arts

At age 19, while working at a restaurant in mid-town Montreal, a patron had seen some of the sketches she was working on when business became quiet and was stuck by her talent. Practically insisting she enrol in the École des Beaux-Arts (of which Rita had never heard), he picked her up at home, took her to the school and stood at the bottom of the steps ensuring she entered, then continued to stand there long enough for her to be asked if she was enrolling – the answer was "Yes". After several questionnaires and a practical exam she was accepted. It was there that she met friends Gilles Groulx, and Ulysse Comtois who was to be her boyfriend and partner for over 15 years. There she worked in a very academic atmosphere for a year and a half. In 1950 she went to view an art show "L’Exposition des Rebelles" (despite being largely condemned by her professors) and befriended the show organizer Jean-Paul Mousseau – this was her introduction to the circle of Borduas and the Automatistes. Soon thereafter, she left l'Ecole des Beaux-Art.

The Automatistes

Paul-Émile Borduas (the main force behind the libertarian manifesto Refus Global) was probably the greatest influence to Rita’s life as a painter – he believed self-knowledge was the key to producing highly personal work. Borduas was described by her as being "very nice, very intelligent, and very sensitive – he respected people". When she was mocked for painting figurative images, Borduas would defend her insisting figurative painting or non-figurative painting was still painting. By 1951 Rita had abandoned figuration and threw herself wholeheartedly into painting in abstraction. She began showing with the Automatistes in store windows and on fences in St-Louis Square in Montreal and lived mostly on beans and spaghetti.

The Plasticiens

Her first official group show was in 1955 at the Henri Tranquille bookstore in Montreal alongside other first and second generation Automatistes. Eventually her work was noticed, most notably by artist/art critic Rodolphe de Repentigny (the major force behind the Plasticiens who espoused the philosophies of Piet Mondrian and the virtues of geometric form in art). Impressed by the structure and form in the works of the Plasticiens, Rita began changing her style to a more geometric one, employing more structured colour fields, zones of energy, thus temporarily abandoning the purely instinctual approach of Automatisme. She showed at Espace 55 with the Plasticiens – the exhibition was shown in Quebec, Montréal, Rimouski and Toronto – the same year she had her first solo show at L’Echourie in Montreal.

Zen and Abstract Expressionism

In the late 1950s, having internalized the ideas of the Plasticiens, she abandoned the confines of geometric works and began studying the ideas of Zen and Confucius; these ideas began to translate into her paintings characterized by lines and strokes in black and white. She was also struck by the work of the Abstract Expressionists in New York and in particular, impressed by the work of Franz Kline. Many of these elements and themes would be revisited in the works that soon followed, increasing in gestural quality and characterized with heavy impasto with a palette knife or spatula. Her production began to increase and Rita began to come into her own, winning first prize in the Concours de la Jeune Peinture in 1959 and the Prix Rodolphe-de-Repentigny in 1960. This prize (worth $300) and the additional sales that followed enabled Rita to quit her job and paint full-time – it also allowed her to buy more paint and canvas than she dreamed possible. Armed with better paint, more colors and more material, she began painting larger works in explosions of violent color and won second prize in the painting category in the Concours artistiques du Québec in 1961. Her compositions were intensely personal, more carefully planned; she began anchoring masses with carefully visualized gestures which would often take hours to visualize and execute. Having secured a Canada Arts Council bursary in 1962, she travelled with Ulysse Comtois throughout Europe for the next year and a half. This was a productive period and she sent large groups of works home; the beginnings of her hard edge style also began, where more well defined masses or wedges would evoke vibration, movement and collisions. In Italy she showed at Spolete, won a gold medal at Piccola Europa in Sassaferator, and met Russian born sculptor Kosso Eloul. On Eloul’s invitation to work in one of his studios, she travelled with Ulysse Comtois to paint in Israel.

Hard Edge

In 1964, her works became considerably simplified, more focused on geometric shapes and movement. She travelled to Paris for 3 months and ended her relationship with Ulysse Comtois; by the end of the year she was in a new relationship with Kosso Eloul. When he took a teaching position at California State College at Long Beach in March 1964, Rita went with him. There, two key opportunities availed her. The first was a commission to paint “Sunforce” a large mural executed on a campus building. Sunforce represents a critical turning point in her technique. Due to the massive scale of the mural, her current impasto techniques became impractical and she was forced to adapt to the flat plane of the mural surface. In Sunforce, the image suggests a large mass that drops, and continues to drop as though it would continue through the bottom and off the painting. The second, was the opportunity to learn printmaking, lithography and eventually silk screen, a technique conducive to hard-edge shapes. The couple left Los Angeles in 1969, alternating their time between New York and Toronto (which would continue until 1975) and the demand for her work increased. In New York, galleries were purchasing entire series’ of 100 prints outright. One day in 1971 someone suggested she might obtain a better effect on her long lines/rays if she used an airbrush; hesitant at first, she began using it more and more, then eventually used it all of the time. She found that airbrush brought her something new, something that neither oil, nor acrylic, nor the millions of lines she had made in the 1970s had succeeded in bringing her. The popularity of her work continued with many public and private commissions for large scale works and murals including one covering the top six stories of the Neill-Wycik college residence at Ryerson University in Toronto, the first of its kind in Canada. She was also commissioned to design a huge colored skylight for the ceiling of Glencairn (TTC) subway station in Toronto entitled “Joy”; it was eventually removed at Rita’s request because the panels had faded after being exposed to many years of sunlight. In 1973, she began to soften some of the edges in her works, a trend that would continue the next few years; this resulted in a myriad of horizontal landscape compositions often containing a few or even only one thin hard edge line.

Pastel

She began experimenting with pastels in 1980 and produced a remarkable series in 1982 inspired by the nearby Nevada landscape while staying with her husband in Beverly Hills as he recovered from heart surgery. Pastels and the techniques she developed with them afforded her an opportunity to create a soft edge effect in landscape like compositions using a completely different medium.

Reversion to oil and current work

By 1995 she worked in heavier oils again, abandoning the airbrush completely, and controlled her gestural compositions with brush, palette knife and her bare hands. Her husband, Kosso Eloul, died later that year, and she took a long break from painting. In the summer of 1997 she returned to painting and continued to show and develop her style. After having sold her house in Toronto, she moved back to Montreal in 2004. She went on to be awarded the Order of Canada in 2005, an honorary Ph.D. from the University of Montreal and the Governor General’s Award in 2010 and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012. At 87, Rita has continued to produce and show works created as recently as 2014.

Awards

2016 – Member of the Order of Ontario
2012 – Recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal
2010 – Honoris Causa Ph D – University of Montreal
2010 - Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts
2010 - Creation of prix hommage Rita-Letendre de la ville de Drummondville
2005 - Officer of the Order of Canada
2002 - Officer of l'Ordre National du Québec
1975 - Canada Council Senior Arts Grant
1970 - Ile Festival International de Peinture, Cagnes-sur-Mer, France (Prix National)
1967 - Bourse de Recherche, Gouvernement du Québec
1962 - Gold Medal, Piccola Europa Exhibition, Sassoferrato, Italy
1962 - Canada Council Travel Grant (Europe)
1961 - Prix de la Peinture, Province du Québec
1960 - Prix Rodolphe-de-Repentigny
1959 – Premier Prix, Concours de la Jeune Peinture

Solo shows

2017 Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
2016 Galerie Simon Blais, Montreal
2014 Galerie Simon Blais, Montreal
2013 Gallery Gevik, Toronto
2013 Winchester Gallery, Victoria, BC
2012 Galerie Michel Guimont, Québec
2011 Galerie Simon Blais, Montreal
2010 Gallery Gevik, Toronto
2008 Galerie Simon Blais, Montreal
2008 Galerie d’Art d’Outremont, Outremont
2008 Gallery Gevik, Toronto
2006 Gallery Gevik, Toronto
2006 Robert McLaughlin Art Gallery, Oshawa, Ontario
2005 Galerie Simon Blais, Montreal
2004 Musée du Québec
2004 Winnipeg Art Gallery
2004 Galerie Simon Blais, Montreal
2003 Musée du Québec
2003 The Art Company, Toronto
2002 Moore Gallery, Toronto
2002 Art Sutton, Sutton, Québec
2001 Centre d’Exposition de Baie-Saint-Paul, Québec
2001 Moore Gallery, Toronto
2001 Galerie Simon Blais, Montreal
2000 Moore Gallery, Toronto
1999 Art Gallery of Algoma, Sault St. Marie
1998 Galerie Madelaine Lacerte, Québec
1998 Centre Culturel de Drummondville
1997 Moore Gallery, Toronto
1997 Waddington & Gorce Gallery, Montreal
1997 Galerie Simon Blais, Montreal
1996 Art Sutton, Sutton, Québec
1994 Moore Gallery, Hamilton
1993 Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto
1992 Waddington & Gorce Gallery, Montreal
1991 Moore Gallery, Hamilton
1991 The 291 Gallery, Toronto
1990 Robert McLaughlin Art Gallery, Oshawa, Ontario
1990 Moore Gallery, Hamilton
1989 Concordia Art Gallery
1989 Moore Gallery, Hamilton
1988 Moore Gallery, Hamilton
1988 Preston Burke Gallery, Detroit
1988 Waddington & Gorce Gallery, Montreal
1987 Preston Burke Gallery, Detroit
1984 DeVorzon Gallery, Los Angeles
1984 Galerie Gilles Corbeil, Montreal
1984 Gallery Moos, Toronto
1984 Waddington & Gorce Gallery, Montreal
1984 Wallack Gallery, Ottawa
1983 Gallery Graphica, Edmonton
1983 Gallery Moos, Toronto
1982 Galerie Gilles Corbeil, Montreal
1981 Wallack Gallery, Ottawa
1980 Centre Culturel de Drummondville
1980 Galerie Gilles Corbeil, Montreal
1980 Gallery Moos, Toronto
1979 Gallery Moos, Calgary
1979 The Art Package, Chicago
1979 The Ardwin Gallery, Detroit
1979 Wallack Gallery, Ottawa
1978 Galerie Gilles Corbeil, Montreal
1978 West End Gallery, Edmonton
1977 Gallery Moos, Toronto
1976 Algoma Festival of Technical Arts, Sault-St. Marie
1976 Arras Gallery, New York
1976 Equinox Gallery, Vancouver
1975 Galerie Gilles Corbeil, Montreal
1975 Vibrations Coloreés, Place des Arts, Montreal
1974 Arras Gallery, New York
1974 DeVorzon Gallery, Los Angeles
1974 Galerie de Montreal, Montreal
1974 Gallery Moos, Toronto
1974 Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs, California
1973 Benson Gallery, New York
1973 Galerie de Montreal, Montreal
1973 Gallery Moos, Toronto
1973 University of Toronto, School of Architecture
1972 Bau-Xi Gallery, Vancouver
1972 DeVorzon Gallery, Los Angeles
1972 Malvina Miller Gallery, San Francisco
1972 Museé d’Art Contemporain, Montreal
1972 The Arwin Gallery, Detroit
1971 Galerie de Montreal, Montreal
1970 Roberts Gallery, Toronto
1969 Gordon Gallery, Tel-Aviv, Israel
1969 Gallery Sherbrooke, Montreal
1967 Gallery Pascal, Toronto
1966 Galerie Agnes Lefort, Montreal
1965 Galerie Camille Hébert, Montreal
1963 Dorothy Cameron Gallery, Toronto
1963 Galerie Camille Hébert, Montreal
1963 University of Ottawa Art Gallery
1963 Université of Sherbrooke
1962 Here and Now Gallery, Toronto
1961 Dorothy Cameron Gallery, Toronto
1961 Galerie Denyse Delrue, Montreal
1961 Here and Now Gallery, Toronto
1961 Museé des Beaux-Arts, Montreal
1959 Galerie Denyse Delrue, Montreal
1958 Galerie Artek, Montreal
1956 Galerie L’Actuelle, Montreal
1955 Galerie L’Echourie, Montreal

Major collections

National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Musée d’Art Contemporain, Montreal
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Montreal
Musée National du Québec, Québec
Musée Laurier
La Caisse de Dépot du Québec
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce
Concordia Art Gallery, Montreal
Art Gallery of Vancouver
Art Gallery of Windsor
Carleton University
Art Gallery of Ontario
Toronto Dominion Bank
Royal Bank of Canada
The Art Bank of Canada, Canada Arts Council
The Palm Springs Desert Museum Palm Springs, California
San Diego Art Gallery
The Robert McLaughlin Art Gallery, Oshawa, Ontario
Storm King Art Center, New York
IBM Canada, Toronto
Norcen Gas Corporation, Toronto
Rothmans of Canada, Toronto
Canadian Industry Ltd. (CIL)
Shell Canada, Calgary
Ministry of External Affairs
Northern & Central Gas Corporation Collection
Continental Telephone Corporation, Dallas, TX
Speed Museum, KY
University of California, Long Beach
Radio Canada, Montreal
Long Beach Museum of Fine Arts
Moncton University
Sir George William University, Montreal