Lot 14: Paul-Émile Borduas 1905 - 1960 Canadian oil on

Paul-Émile Borduas 1905 - 1960 Canadian oil on canvas Persistance des noirs 18 x 15 inches 45.7 x 38.1 centimeters signed and dated 1955 and on verso titled on three gallery labels and inscribed with the Martha Jackson Gallery inventory #1525 on the stretcher and on the gallery label Literature:Martha Jackson, Paul-Émile Borduas, Paintings 1953 - 1956, Martha Jackson Gallery, 1957, unpaginated François-Marc Gagnon, Paul-Émile Borduas (1905 - 1960), Biographie critique et analyse de l'oeuvre, 1978, pages 383, 384, 449 and 493, reproduced figure 93 René Payant, ""The Tenacity of the Sign"", Artscanada, Volume XXXV, no. 224/225, December 1978 - January 1979, page 34 Provenance:Martha Jackson Gallery, New York, 1957 Private Collection, Ontario Exhibited:Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, Brazil, IIIe Bienal de São Paulo, June - October 1955, titled as Persistencia dos pretos, catalogue #12 in the Canadian section Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Artistas canadenses, November 24 - December 11, 1955, titled as Persistencia dos pretos, catalogue #12 Martha Jackson, New York, Paul-Émile Borduas, Paintings 1953 - 1956, March 19 - April 16, 1957 Arthur Tooth & Sons, London, England, Two Canadian Painters, Paul-Émile Borduas, Harold Town, October 7 - 25, 1958 Manchester Institute of Contemporary Arts (Manchester City Art Gallery, Athenaeum Annex), Canadian Trio: Paul-Émile Borduas - William Newcombe - Jean-Paul Riopelle, September 29 - October 29, 1961, catalogue #3 This is a painting that has traveled a lot. It was shown at the third Bienal at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, June to October 1955, under the title Persistencia dos pretos. But as a label affixed to the back of the painting shows, it was also shown in Rio de Janeiro, at the Museu de Arte Moderna soon after, at the end of November and beginning of December 1955. This Bienal was an important event - since its inception in 1951, the Bienal de São Paulo wanted to create in the Americas an event analogous to the Venice Biennale in Europe. Paul-Émile Borduas and Jean-Paul Riopelle were representing Canada on this occasion. Their participation had been sponsored by the National Gallery of Canada under Robert H. Hubbard's curatorship, and a catalogue was published indicating that Borduas had 12 recent paintings at this show. Our painting, catalogue #12, was the last mentioned. The painting was later consigned to the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York, as attested to by another label on the back of the painting. After the death of Borduas, the painting was exhibited in England, at the Manchester Institute of Contemporary Arts, in September and October of 1961. Borduas's work was exhibited there again, along with the work of Riopelle and William Newcombe. I mentioned Persistance des noirs in a footnote of my 1977 catalogue Borduas and America/Borduas et l'Amérique for the Vancouver Art Gallery, but it was not presented at this exhibition. It is an extraordinary painting - notice the many directions of the palette knife applying thick layers of paint, as if Borduas was determined to occupy the whole surface at once. The white seems to have been added towards the end of the process, on a darker and more colorful background, and it is indeed a miracle that the blacks have persisted. In this work, Borduas seems to make a synthesis of his own painting until then. He was always fascinated by the suggestion of depth, but under the impact of the painting of New York, he moved towards a more two-dimensional space. The fact that the black has persisted in creating openings in the white surface, shows a will not to lose the third dimension completely. We are still far from the Black and White paintings of his Parisian period, but nevertheless on the way. On the other hand, Borduas has renounced the relationship to the object that was so conspicuous in his automatist paintings (see La danseuse jaune et la bête, lot 20 in this sale). Now the painting is purely gestural, creating an effect of proximity between the onlooker and the painter, which is very touching after so many years. My colleague, René Payant, used to speak of the "indexality" of these Borduas paintings, meaning that there is a direct causal relation between the effect created by the painting and the handling of the medium by the painter. The presence of the painter producing the work is felt as immediate and real. It is not surprising that Borduas saw his own painting as emotionally charged, the synthesis of so many feelings. If I may be allowed to quote myself, in reviewing the 12 paintings shown at São Paulo, I wrote, "Il s'agit certainement d'un des tableaux les plus intéressants de la série. [Certainly it is one of the more attractive paintings of the series.]" I have not changed my opinion. We thank François-Marc Gagnon of the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute of Studies in Canadian Art, Concordia University, for contributing the above essay.