Lot 23: Louis Belzile 1929 - Canadian gouache and crayon

Louis Belzile 1929 - Canadian gouache and crayon on artist board Sérénité 30 x 20 inches 76.2 x 50.8 centimeters signed and dated 1956 and on verso titled on the artist's label Literature:David Burnett & Marilyn Schiff, Contemporary Canadian Art, 1983, page 36 Provenance:Private Collection, Montreal Private Collection, Toronto The Plasticiens, an important artistic movement in Quebec, derived certain principles from the Automatist movement, yet were distinctly different in theory and painting practice. The unique quality of the Plasticiens was largely due to their main artistic alignment with Piet Mondrian and the Constructivist movement that focused on a return to order, rejecting certain Surrealist tendencies. Burnett writes, "In Paris, Belzile, who was there in 1952 - 53, could have seen not only the work of the original Constructivists but that of many others who had been drawn to Paris." This serene, harmonious work is of particularly fine quality, and expresses the primary idea of linear structure which the Plasticiens espoused.