Jean-Paul Riopelle - Canadian (1923-2002)

One of the foremost Canadian artists of the 20th century, Jean-Paul Riopelle was as multitalented as he was prolific, having produced during his lifetime over 6,000 works – a third thereof paintings – including oil on canvas, ink on paper, watercolors, lithographs, and sculptural installations. He was amongst the 16 signatories to the 1948 manifesto Le Refus global (Total Refusal), announcing the Quebecois artistic community’s total rejection of clericalism and provincialism. Experimenting with non-representational painting whilst a university student, he gradually shifted from Surrealism to Lyrical Abstraction. In lieu of the paintbrush, he used palette knifes, spatulas, or trowels to apply paint in thick impastos onto large canvases, creating myriads of multicolored and seemingly unruly cubes and triangles, while attempting to finish the work in a single session. The one constant in his extraordinary career was the trinity of color, gloss, and volume, which endowed his works with a distinctive sculptural quality.