Marcelle Ferron 1924 - 2001

Otto Bengle, Montréal
Private Collection, Toronto

Marcelle Ferron de 1945 a 1970, Musée d'art Contemporain, Montréal, April 8 - May 31, 1970

Musée d'art Contemporain, Marcelle Ferron de 1945 a 1970, Montréal, 1970, cat. no. 36, reproduced.
Réal Lussier, Marcelle Ferron, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Montréal, 2000, pp. 22-23.

By 1959, Ferron had lived and worked in Paris for nearly a decade and had found her signature style of wide palette knife strokes and luminescent colours contrasted with brilliant whites. She was at the apex of her career and considered an ambassador of Canadian abstraction abroad. Réal Lussier writes about the works of this period: "Les compositions prennent plus d'ampeur et deviennent plus tumulteuses. Alors que les traces de spatule ne cessent de s'élargir et de s'amplifier dans une gestualité très énérgetique, la pâte demeure généreuse et la palette mise sur des accents de couleurs pures et brilliantes our dominent le rouge, le jaune et le bleu." ("The compositions are spacious and more tumultuous and the palette knife strokes are increasingly broad and intensified by her energetic movements. The impasto remains generous and the colour palette stresses pure and brilliant reds, yellows and blues.")