Rita Letendre: In Memoriam

Introduction to the Exhibition by Phillip Gevik:

Out of all the professional relationships I’ve had over my career as an art dealer, the past fifteen years spent representing Rita Letendre are some of my most cherished.  Rita was a Canadian icon – a trailblazing artist and figure to whom generations of young painters can look to for inspiration.  As a person, she was always so full of energy and ready for anything – she managed to put her life in her work and her work in her life. 

As Rita’s eyesight grew weaker over the years, she became unable to paint which caused her much distress but she filled her time consuming audiobooks on a wide variety of scientific topics that fascinated her.  Even in Rita’s final days she had a burning desire to leap out of bed and get on with her day.  I remember visiting her numerous times at St. Michael’s Hospital and once casually suggested that at the end of our visit, I would find a way to take her home and we would have dinner and a glass of wine.  Without hesitating she replied, “That’s a wonderful idea.”

Although Rita became unable to travel over the last few years, museums and curators clamored to pay tribute to her with retrospective exhibitions and artistic honours.  It’s a shame she often couldn’t partake in these celebrations because there’s nothing she loved more than a party. In 2018, at our 90th birthday celebration for Rita, Wanda Nanibush, Curator Indigenous Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario, summed up the artist when she remarked that Rita Letendre “paints fire and light in a way we’ve never seen before.  [Throughout her life,] she was always thinking, feeling and experiencing light both spiritually and in terms of the canvas. I learned this from being in front her work.  Her paintings open up our hearts and souls to what life can be, and that makes us want to live better, more passionately and stronger. This is what Rita Letendre has brought to us through her work and who she was as a person.” 

I couldn’t be prouder of the works we’ve gathered over the past many months for this special exhibition, which includes rarely seen paintings and works on paper from each decade of Rita’s artistic life.  It’s my honour to share them with all of you and I hope you will join us at Gallery Gevik on Saturday November 19, 2022 from 1 – 5 pm for our opening reception, and also in remembering Rita at the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Celebration of Life on Wednesday November 23, 2022 from 7-9 pm in Baillie Court.