Lot 17: Paul-Émile Borduas 1905 - 1960 Canadian oil on canvas Ronde d'automne

Paul-Émile Borduas 1905 - 1960 Canadian oil on canvas Ronde d'automne
20 x 24 inches 50.8 x 61 centimeters signed and dated 1953 and on verso titled and dated on the Martha Jackson Gallery label Literature:Frank O'Hara, Art News, Volume 52, No. 9, January 1954
Rodolphe de Repentigny, L'Autorité du peuple, February 6, 1954, page 7
Paul-Émile Borduas: Paintings 1953 - 1956, Martha Jackson Gallery, 1957, unpaginated
"Borduas parle.....", Liberté, January - February 1962, page 12
Paul-Émile Borduas 1905 - 1960, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1962, listed, unpaginated
François-Marc Gagnon, Paul-Émile Borduas (1905 - 1960), Biographie critique et analyse de l'oeuvre, 1978, pages 323, 327 and 490
Provenance:Martha Jackson Gallery, New York, inventory #1053
Passedoit Gallery, New York
Gallery Arthur Tooth & Sons Ltd., London
Edgar and Dorothy Davidson, Montreal and then moving to Ottawa in 1972 Exhibited:Passedoit Gallery, New York, Paul-Émile Borduas, January 5 - 23, 1954, catalogue #2
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Paul-Émile Borduas 1905 - 1960, January 11 - February 11, 1962, traveling to the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Toronto, 1962, catalogue # 82
Gallery Arthur Tooth & Sons Ltd., London Ronde d'automne appears as #15 on the "Liste des tableaux de Provincetown", 1953, written by Paul-Émile Borduas probably at the end of a fruitful stay in Provincetown. Borduas had left Canada for the United States on April 1, 1953, although, as he explained to art critic Jacques Folch-Ribas, who published his words after Borduas's death, "I didn't leave for New York right away. I left in springtime, in April. I had an old habit of going to the country, and it seemed to me completely absurd to settle in New York for the oncoming summer. So I went instead to Provincetown, which is a charming place." Indeed, Provincetown, on Cape Cod with sand dunes and the sea nearby, was beautifully situated. It was also known as an artists' colony. Hans Hofmann, for instance, had his Summer School there, and it is possible that Borduas might have encountered him. However, we do not know that for sure, although Borduas seems to have worked a lot in Provincetown. The list we just mentioned contains 35 titles of works. Of these, a group of 18 - among them our Ronde d'automne - were presented at the first Borduas exhibition in New York at the Gisèle Passedoit Gallery. It was also shown at the great Borduas retrospective held after his death at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, at the National Gallery of Canada and at The Art Gallery of Toronto in 1962.
It is an interesting small painting, in which Borduas maintained a difference between the centre and the periphery. The centre is busier than the edges; the movement, sometimes quite syncopated, calms down before reaching the perimeter of the canvas. This was a prolongation of a system already in place in 1952 and indicated how ready Borduas was at that time to adopt the all-overness of American painting, of which he was not yet aware.
The colour of the painting was probably responsible for its title - its pale green and brown, with a few black and white accents, could be seen as typical autumn colours. Borduas was a master of tonal colour. He did not like simple oppositions between primary or complementary colours, and it is not surprising that this enabled him to suggest atmospheric colours, as he did here. Also, the movement in the work, coming from two directions, could suggest the wind.
e do not know how this specific painting was perceived at the time, although it ended up in an extremely fine collection. But we can say that this first showing of Borduas in New York was well received. His exhibition at the Passedoit Gallery, from January 5 to 23, 1954, was well attended. The famous critic and poet Frank O'Hara wrote that "his technique becomes completely abstract in style, similar to much New York work, with great dependence on palette knife and on equality of surface working as well as of tonal distribution." In other words, the door was open to Borduas in New York. And indeed, this New York period of his work would prove to be a favourite of collectors, especially in Toronto.
Robert Motherwell, who was at the opening of the Passedoit exhibition, was supposed to have said of Borduas, "He is the Courbet of the XXth century!" If this is true - it was the Canadian critic Rodolphe de Repentigny who reported it in L'Autorité du peuple - Borduas could not have had a better assessment.
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.