Lot 12: Claude Tousignant 1932 - Canadian acrylic on

Claude Tousignant 1932 - Canadian acrylic on canvas Tableau vert - 1 44 x 44 inches 111.7 x 111.7 centimeters on verso signed, titled and dated 1983 Literature:James D. Campbell, After Geometry, the Abstract Art of Claude Tousignant, 1995, page 114 Provenance:Private Collection, Montreal With a body of work that spans five decades, Claude Tousignant is one of Canada's most renowned abstract painters and sculptors. After taking part in the second wave of the Plasticien movement, his avant-garde abstractions have continued to evolve from his geometric to his monochromatic and polychromatic periods, in an explorative quest towards a new pictorial and spatial language. James Campbell describes the series this work is from succinctly: "In late 1983, Tousignant undertook a new series entitled Polychromes. These pieces have deep stretchers, and so have deep sides, all of which are painted in colours different from - either complementary to, or contrasting with - that of the frontal monochrome's surface. It is the chromatic distinction of their sides that makes these works polychromes rather than monochromes. The polychromes represent a crucial stage in the evolution of Tousignant's entire body of work for the radical spatiality is brought into play in these works with tremendously engaging results." Please note that each of the four edges of this work is in a different colour: grey, green, red and blue.