A powerfully dramatic work, Étude pour Er-Rcha (1978), by the painter Yves Gaucher, pulls the eye sharply back and forth across the surface of an abruptly truncated triangle. It is a preliminary version of a masterful piece “so strange and so moving,” writes author and art critic Roald Nasgaard, that “[it is] a poignant reminder of the fragility, mystery, and power of painting as a medium.” The Er-Rcha in the title is the Arabic name for Jericho, the Middle Eastern city that inspired one of Barnett Newman’s last paintings, Jericho (1968–69), which in turn prompted Gaucher’s series in homage to it. Driven by these thematic variations, Étude pour Er-Rcha consists of a red triangle, clipped at the top and on the right—in fact, so drastically reduced that it is nearly unrecognizable—against a white rectangle. The use of so pure a red and white is a first for Gaucher. According to Nasgaard, Er-Rcha represents his boldest variation on the theme of the diagonal. Although it undoubtedly alludes to Newman, it is a direct descendant of another acrylic, Oranges-Jaune, created less than a year earlier, as evidenced by the complete rejection of internal horizontal or vertical lines. Thus, out of this abbreviated triangle comes a new irregular form that exerts such tension within the canvas’s rectangular form that it seems barely able to hold its shape. A manifesto in paint and perhaps the shaped canvas par excellence, the final version of which, Er-Rcha, holds the gaze across nearly three metres in height and width.
Born in Montreal in 1934, Yves Gaucher studied at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal from 1954 to 1956. Expelled from the school, he continued his training with printmaker Albert Dumouchel until 1960. He won a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts in 1962, which enabled him to travel to Europe. Starting 1963, he was represented by galle- ries in Montreal, Toronto, and New York, where he obtained his first solo exhibition at the Martha Jackson Gallery. The same year, still in New York, the Museum of Modern Art acquired In Homage to Webern No. 2, thereby launching his international career. In 1964, returning to painting, as well as to colour, Gaucher temporarily abandoned printmaking. In 1966, he participated in the 33rd Venice Biennale and became an assistant professor at the school of fine arts at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia University) in Montreal. Gaucher was made a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1973. In the early 1990s, he returned to printmaking, relief, and materiality. He died in Montreal in 2000.
