Rita Letendre was always in motion, whether at work in her studio, her lovely back garden, enjoying the opera, or a party with friends. When I look back on the twenty years we worked together, the word that comes to mind is flight. Rita was forever in flight, and so is her work.

Rita was born on November 1st, and November has always been her month in my gallery. We marked her birthday every year with an exhibition, which gave Rita an opportunity to see so many of her old friends which she loved and looked forward to all year.  During the pandemic year, when we were unable to come together, I brought cake and flowers to her home and we had a lovely little celebration along with her caregiver Nina. With the fifth anniversary of Rita’s passing arriving on November 20th, I wanted to celebrate her with a show that follows that restless spirit across four decades.

The earliest painting in the exhibition, Memory of a Time Past, dates from 1965, when Rita was living in Los Angeles. It’s a bold, thickly worked canvas of black and white, with two of her favourite colours playing off each other to create a striking interplay of light. Around this time she was beginning to reach toward something bigger and faster – the striking contrast in this painting marks the beginning of her eventual move to hard-edged energy lines by the end of the decade. She often talked often about the moon landing and the idea of breaking the sound barrier, and you can feel that hunger for speed in everything that followed.

By the 1980s, that energy had turned to pure light. In Daybreak and Un Horizon, soft bands of colour glow and dissolve like the sky just before sunrise, while a single bright line runs across the bottom like a runway at dusk. Homage à Chaikowsky brings Rita’s other great passion into the room. She often painted to opera and symphonies with the volume cranked so high that she couldn’t hear me when she answered the phone. Here, a dark mass rises over a blaze of golden orange like the final swell of a symphony.

The 1990s paintings and pastels, including New World, Fiesta, and Break Into, are Rita at her most unrestrained. Fiery oranges, electric blues, and sweeping strokes tear across the surface as if the paint couldn’t move fast enough for her. These are some of the most joyful works she made.

What I’ll always remember about Rita is that she never wanted to stay put. In her last days in hospital, I once joked that I’d sneak her out for dinner and a glass of wine. She didn’t hesitate for a second: “That’s a wonderful idea.”

I hope you’ll drop in to see this never-before-seen collection of paintings in person. Rita always said, I don’t want to be famous, I want to be a great painter and these works are meant to be experienced up close, from where the colour can pull you in. For collectors, it’s a rare chance to bring home a piece of Rita’s story, from the early Los Angeles years to the luminous works of her later decades. 

Please join me on Saturday, November 21, 2026 from 1 – 5 pm to celebrate Rita. She would have loved the company. – Phillip Gevik