Estimated Price:

   $   

Realized Price:

   $   

What is this symbol? This symbol indicates that this auction hose has verified this price result.

Log in or subscribe to view price data

Alfred Pellan 1906 - 1988 Canadian oil on board Soucoupes volantes 12 7/8 x 17 5/8 inches 32.7 x 44.8 centimeters signed and on verso signed, titled and inscribed ""294"" Literature:Roald Nasgaard, Abstract Painting in Canada, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, 2007, page 59 Provenance:Edgar and Dorothy Davidson, Montreal and then moving to Ottawa in 1972 Alfred Pellan studied, lived and worked in Paris beginning in 1926. On his return to Canada in 1940 after the German invasion of Paris, he was hailed as a hero who would aid in ending conservatism and academism in Quebec. Artist Jacques de Tonnancour claimed, "What French-Canadian art needed in order to be resurrected after these centuries of lethargic slumber was a vigorous blow from the outside and Pellan provided that blow." In 1948, Pellan founded the Prisme d'yeux group to encourage diversity and counter the dominant influence of the Automatists. Pellan's work was informed by various European influences such as Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, Primitivism and, most significantly, Surrealism. Soucoupes volantes, or Flying Saucers, embodies Pellan's unique use of associative dream imagery. Groups of people express amazement at these strange craft in the skies, depicted by ovals and round forms activated by an inner energy force. Typical of Pellan is the flamboyant use of colour and the depiction of the transformative space of the unconscious. Inventive and fantastic, Soucoupes volantes contains a dimension of interaction and transformation between human experience and the unknown.