Lines of paint drawn with a palette knife cover the canvas. They flow out of the red centre of the painting in all directions. Jean-Paul Riopelle applied the paint to the canvas with brushes and palette knives or directly from the tube creating the impression of a kaleidoscopic mosaic.
The French-Canadian artist became interested in the Surrealists as a young painter and moved from Montreal to Paris in 1947. In France, he lived in a relationship with the American painter Joan Mitchell from 1955 to 1979. They were both enthusiastic about French Impressionism and drew inspiration from nature. They both regarded their works as abstracted landscape paintings.
Jean-Paul Riopelle (1923–2002)
Untitled, 1964
Currently exhibited: No
Material: Oil on canvas
Size: 129.5 x 97 cm
Inv-Nr.: B_152
Image rights: VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Keywords:
Acquisition: Reinhard Ernst Collection, Galerie Jean Fournier, Paris, 2010
Solo exhibitions:
2009
‘Jean-Paul Riopelle’, Galerie Jean Fournier, Paris, France
1981
‘Riopelle á Nancy’, Musée des Baux-Arts de Nancy, Nancy, France
Lines of paint drawn with a palette knife cover the canvas. They flow out of the red centre of the painting in all directions. Jean-Paul Riopelle applied the paint to the canvas with brushes and palette knives or directly from the tube creating the impression of a kaleidoscopic mosaic.
The French-Canadian artist became interested in the Surrealists as a young painter and moved from Montreal to Paris in 1947. In France, he lived in a relationship with the American painter Joan Mitchell from 1955 to 1979. They met through Sam Francis who was good friends with them both. Mitchell and Riopelle drew inspiration from nature and regarded their works as abstracted landscape paintings even though Riopelle rejected the distinction between abstraction and figurative representation.
‘In my opinion, the paintings of mine which are considered the most abstract are, in the strictest sense of the word, the most representational. Conversely, aren’t the paintings where we think we can pick out meaning – the geese, the owls, the moose – actually more abstract than the rest? Abstract: “abstraction”, “subtracted”, “pulling away” […] In my work, I go in the opposite direction. I take nothing from nature, I go towards nature […] Abstraction is just as impossible as figurative representation. Paint the sky? Out of the question, never! We could try – but only if we had never seen the sky before. If you look at it like that, as I said, I’m much more of a depressionist than an impressionist. I keep my distance from reality – just far enough not to detach myself from it completely.’ [1]
[1] Gilbert Érouart: Entretiens avec Jean-Paul Riopelle, Montreal 1993, p. 40, quoted in Jean-Paul Riopelle. Catalogue raisonné, 3 vols, ed. by Yseult Riopelle, Montreal 1999–2009, vol. 1, p. 42.
