RITA LETENDRE

Rita Letendre, Twilight Phase III, 1972, Silkscreen on paper . Collection of Cafesjian Art Trust Museum. 2025.436.1.

Artist Rita Letendre left cloudy Montreal for sunny southern California in the mid-1960s. There she had an artistic breakthrough with color and light thanks to the region’s crisp blue skies and bold sunsets. Inspired, she began to use precise geometries and energetic colors in lieu of the loose brushwork and muted tones predominant in Canadian expressionistic paintings. She found kindred spirits in California as well. Fellow painters were embracing Hard Edge Abstraction, and Light and Space movement artists were beginning to explore human perception in their work. Letendre moved back home to Canada after several years, continuing to refine her approach and developing a signature style: strong colors and confident lines, with arrow designs appearing as radiating beams of light. Twilight Phase III flips perception of an evening sunset: the dark blue evening sky is in the center of the picture plane, and the vivid colors of the sunset appear both above and below. 

Letendre’s abstractions also illuminate the expectations and limitations often placed on modern Native artists. Artists like Letendre were forced to keep their Indigenous ancestry a secret to enter art schools and galleries. Once they managed to establish themselves and share how their communities’ art history influenced their work, they were strongly refuted by art critics who were skeptical of any artistic influence beyond EuroAmerican modernism. Letendre and other Native modernists also received backlash from audiences that viewed “authentic” Native and First Nations art as only being made without any “outside influences” like EuroAmerican modernism. These barriers made it extremely difficult for modernist Native and First Nations artists to receive national and international recognition in their lifetimes.