Untitled

 
The year 1962 was an auspicious and decisive one for Marcelle Ferron: her circle of contacts grew wider and her solo, group, and travelling exhibitions, mainly in Europe and in Canada, reached new heights. At her studio in Clamart, a small commune on the outskirts of Paris, she had a notable visit from Eugène Cloutier, the director of the Maison canadienne de Paris, who would go on to purchase the diptych presented here. The painting’s cathedral-like frame, with its two asymmetrical elements, suggests it was likely realized in situ and adds a formalizing element to this remarkable work.
 
Ferron applies her warm- and cool-toned colours in powerful strokes using various palette knives, which were custom-made for her by a French carpenter. One notices her judicious use of these trowels—each one is handled with strength and mastery in upward flowing movements that describe a kind of floral bouquet reaching toward the light for nourishment. The most expressive impastos are found in the beautiful phthalo greens that create a fertile dialogue between the two panels and are highlighted with acidic strokes at their peaks. Without touching, the two coloured aggregates seem to want to meet along their arc-like trajectory. In composition and colour, they are reminiscent of two of Ferron’s largest works, Consonnes sifflantes (1961, National Gallery of Canada collection) and Untitled no. 1 (1961, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal collection); the latter work is featured on the cover of the catalogue for her exhibition Marcelle Ferron, une retrospective, from 2000.
 
On one hand, this diptych evokes highly structured Renaissance altarpieces, in which each section represents a narrative, and on the other, it brings to mind stained-glass works. In fact, in 1962, Ferron began studying architecture with Piotr Kowalski, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was working in Paris. This creative exploration led to the production of artworks that were integrated into architectural projects, as well as monumental stained-glass pieces. In 1964, Ferron discovered coloured glass and visited the Paris studio of the master glass-maker Michel Blum, “who introduced her to the art of stained glass and shared the results of his research in the development of Verrecran.” In this masterful work, Ferron demonstrates genuine, formal originality and reveals, once more, the scope of her artistic genius.
 
(Annie Lafleur)