Lot 205
COLETTE MOREY DE MORAND (CANADIAN/BRITISH 1934-2022) §
UNTITLED
Auction: MODERN MADE Part II | 01 November 2024 | Lots 80 to 444
Description
signed and dated (right margin); also signed, titled and dated in pen (to reverse), graphite on wove paper
Dimensions
76cm x 56.2cm (30in x 22 1/8in), unframed
Provenance
The Estate of the Artist.
Footnote
In the 1980s, the Canadian painter Colette Morey de Morand was part of a loose collective of artists working at the Berry Street studios in Clerkenwell, London and it was here that she met Paula Rego, who was to become a lifelong friend. They would meet almost daily, often visiting other artists’ studios or gallery openings together – as well as providing mutual support during their own exhibitions. They were born within six months of each other; their husbands both died in 1988 (also within six months of each other); they were painters at a time when paint was out of fashion; and, of course, they were women trying to make headway in a world where male artists still held sway and recognition had to be earned twice-over.
Whilst Morey de Morand’s work was abstract and ethereal (before turning hard-edged in the 90s and 2000s) – and Rego’s paintings were irreducibly narrative and corporeal – the artists shared an interest in the metaphysical and art’s ability to access truths beyond the everyday world. Rego often remarked that she had an inability to speak her mind, to speak the truth, hence her flight into storytelling. Morey de Morand seemed to be able to help her find expression, as can be seen in their correspondence consisting of cards, notes and invitations – and they exchanged very thoughtful gifts of their own artworks. The works by Rego presented here have been chosen, in part, for the insight they give into the themes and preoccupations that must have struck a chord between the two artist-friends – joy and melancholy, fulfilment and loss, the mundane and the eternal.
