Artist of the Day, January 20, 2025: Jean-Paul Riopelle, a Québecois painter (#2196)

Jean-Paul Riopelle (1923 – 2002) was an  Abstract Expressionist best known for his non-representational landscapes. Riopelle used paint squeezed straight from the tube and liberally applied by a palette knife to craft his dense, large-scale mosaics.

Born in Montreal, Canada, Riopelle studied at both the École des Beaux-Arts and the École de Meuble in the city during the 1940s. His instructor, Paul Émile Borduas, had been a founding member of Les Automatistes—an offshoot of the Surrealist movement. After traveling to Paris in 1947, Riopelle became one of the School of Paris, notably including Joan Mitchell, with whom he lived and worked for almost fifteen years. Since the 1960s, Riopelle created sculpture, lithography, and assemblages, and died on March 12, 2002 in Île-aux-Grues, Canada at the age of 78. He won the UNESCO prize at the 1962 Venice Biennale, and was given retrospectives at the Kölnischer Kunstverein in Cologne in 1958, the Musée du Québec in 1967, and the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg in 2006.

The only Canadian artist involved with the seminal post-World War II School of Paris, Jean-Paul Riopelle was in dialogue with artists such as Alberto Giacometti, Joan Miró, and André Breton when he made his surrealism-inspired, abstract paintings. Riopelle employed a tachiste style, which he achieved by applying oil paint in thick, demonstrative strokes with palette knives. He also worked with gouache, watercolor, and ink and experimented with bronze sculpture. When pop art and nouveau réalisme became popular in the 1960s, Riopelle introduced representational elements back into his work. These later paintings have been described as “abstract landscapism.” Later in his life, Riopelle also incorporated figuration and multimedia components into his signature gestural paintings.

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Jean-Paul Riopelle

Sans titre, 1947

Pavane, 1954

Epiphanie, 1956

 Perspectives, 1956

Treillis, 1956

Haze, 1957

Sans titre, 1957

Sans Titre, 1958

 Nouveoux 44, 1964

Untitled (from 1 Cent Life Portfolio) 1964

Untitled composition, 1964

St. Paul, 1966

Feuilles III, 1967

Hibou-Roc, 1969

La tour, 1969

Le Coq, 1969

Hibou, 1970

 Suite Fancy, 1972

 Suite Gaspésienne, 1972

 Suite Nounours, 1972

Le Sablier 6, 1973

Reserve, 1974

Paradisier, 1976

Sans Titre, 1976

 Nouvelle impression, 1977

Sans Titre, 1978

Untitled, 1978

Ombrette, 1984

Sans titre