Lot 4: Guido Molinari 1933 - 2004 Canadian oil on canvas

Guido Molinari 1933 - 2004 Canadian oil on canvas Quantificateur bleu "43 x 37 inches 109.2 x 94 centimeters on verso signed, titled on the Heffel Gallery label and dated 12/1991 Provenance:Heffel Gallery Limited, Vancouver Private Collection, Vancouver Exhibited:Heffel Gallery Limited, Guido Molinari, New Paintings, May 9 - 23, 1992 Guido Molinari remains one of Canada's most esteemed hard-edge abstract painters. A leader of the Montreal Plasticiens group, he was also a respected theorist and writer, teaching art and philosophy at Concordia University until 1997. The Quantificateur series, which he began in the mid-1970s and continued with unremitting enthusiasm until the 1990s, is his life's most intricate and thoroughly developed work. The series is an exploration of seriality, a concept that led Molinari to organize vertical coloured bands in ever-varying, yet never-repeating arrangements. Quantificateur bleu is an excellent example of Molinari's most successful and demanding work. Each canvas explores the immeasurable expressiveness of colour; the individual chromatic values are communicative and meaningful in their own right, but only when viewed holistically, arranged with adjacent tones and shades, can their true complexities be fully understood. In Quantificateur bleu, the intensity of Molinari's design creates a meticulous and delightfully challenging problem for the viewer. Although appearing vertical, each line is slanted, testing our preconceived relationships to space and form. "