2025 June | Hodgins Art Auctions

Notes:

signed in pencil lower right

Note: This piece is from the folio titled “Canadian Drawings: A Portfolio of Prints by Members of the Group of Seven”, published in 1925 by Rous & Mann Limited, Toronto. Each of the zinc plate lithographs is printed on a sheet measuring 15.25 x 11.25 in. A copy of the justification page is attached verso.

Notes:

signed in pencil in the margin; initialed in the plate

Provenance: Masters Gallery, Calgary AB (label verso)

Notes:

signed in pencil by Casson, titled and editioned; publisher’s certificate attached

Notes:

signed, titled, dated and editioned in pencil; monogrammed and dated in the block

Provenance: Estate of Carolyn Tavender, Calgary AB, by descent to family

Note: This work was selected as the front cover of “A History of Art In Alberta: 1905-1970” (Nancy Townshend: Bayeux Arts Inc.: 2005). There is an additional full-page colour illustration on page 167 of the book.

Notes:

signed, titled, dated and editioned in pencil

Provenance: Estate of Carolyn Tavender, Calgary AB, by descent to family

Notes:

signed, titled, dated and editioned in pencil

Provenance: Estate of Carolyn Tavender, Calgary AB, by descent to family

Notes:

signed, titled, dated and editioned in pencil

Provenance: Estate of Carolyn Tavender, Calgary AB, by descent to family

Notes:

initialed lower centre; signed, titled and dated verso

Notes:

initialed and dated lower right

Jean Xceron, born Yiannis Xirocostas, in the village of Isaris, Greece, is noted as one of the key figures in the development of abstraction in the United States. Xceron moved to the United States at 14 years of age, eventually settling in New York City as a young man. Like many young artists at the time, Xceron’s trajectory was affected greatly by the 1913 New York Armory Show, which introduced the modern art of Paris to the United States. He moved to Paris in the late 1920s, where he resided for ten years, falling in step with the modern European art movements of the time and writing reviews of the latest art world happenings for newspapers in Paris and the United States. Xceron returned to America an entirely abstract artist.

Jean Xceron was employed by the Guggenheim Museum as a registrar and security guard in 1939, and he would keep his post there for the remainder of his life. As modern art progressed into the 1940s and 1950s, Xceron was exposed to major stylistic movements, and took influence from Cubism, De Stijl, Dada and the Abstract Expressionists. He exhibited widely, and is noted for his deep commitment to painting. Xceron’s work is collected internationally, and can be found in numerous public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution.

Notes:

signed lower right; titled on the exhibition/inventory label verso

Provenance: Private collection, Palm Desert CA; Edenhurst Gallery, Palm Desert CA (acquired ca 2003); Private collection, Spokane WA

Note: Additionally titled “Composition #3” on a label remnant verso; framing label verso from The House of Heydenryk, New York NY

René Marcil was born in Montreal (Quebec) and died in Toronto (Ontario), though he spent most of his professional career outside of Canada. Marcil was initially trained at l’École des beaux-arts (Montreal), before entering the world of advertising and commercial illustration. He gained early recognition as both an exhibiting painter and a commercial illustrator, a field in which he rose to prominence. His commercial work was defined by polished and elegant fashion illustrations, produced for major retailers such as Eaton’s (Montreal) and Lord & Taylor (New York City), and his fashion interpretations were essential to the launch of Christian Dior’s “New Look” campaign following the Second World War.

In the early 1950s, Marcil moved to Paris to enroll at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. There, he was exposed to the flourishing Lyrical Abstraction and Neoplasticist movements, and he became deeply engaged in the city’s social and artistic circles. He remained in Europe, where he focused on his non-commercial art, spending time in London and the south of France. His works of the era are noted for their bright vivid colours and geometric forms, and showcase the artist’s casual and painterly approach — a fascinating interplay between the abstract and expressive.