After 1965, many of Hurtubise’s paintings were titled with female names, adding a sibylline touch to his personal mythology. Danielle (1966) is a landmark work from his most accomplished repertoire of that period. The motif is a diamond-shaped pattern that is multiplied across the entire pictorial surface in a binary combination of orange and light blue, generating an intensely vibrating optical effect. Every line, every dividing plane is erased, creating an uninterrupted structure that in itself is quite similar to Doris (1966, Musée national des beaux-arts collection) and Ephramille[1] (1966, 9th São Paolo Biennale in Brazil). Hurtubise reinterprets Abstract Expressionist gesture and Tachism practice in a hard-edge style that conditions and breaks down the line and the plane, like a series of stills. In Danielle, the motifs are repeated in a pattern that is at once regular and asymmetrical, creating a dynamic, illusionistic space, a complete and striking presence.
In 1967, Jacques Hurtubise, along with Jack Bush, represented Canada at the 9th São Paulo Biennale in Brazil. Jean-René Ostiguy, then curator of Canadian art at the National Gallery of Canada, who curated the 9th São Paulo Biennale in Brazil, could not speak highly enough of Hurtubise in his catalogue essay: “Hurtubise’s creative genius now asserts itself through a perfectly controlled technique. The designs of his stencils are organic, mineral, plant life or simply geometric ... When optical vibration comes together with perfect balance between the background and the design, all these images—spots, spark discharges, mirage algae, crosses and rosettes, flowers, leaves and diamonds—fade away before the omnipresence of a respiration, a coloured movement, which is perhaps simply the lyrical texture of the colour.”
(A. Lafleur)
[1] Ephramille was in BYDealers’s post-war and contemporary art auction, May 29, 2019 (lot 28).
