Centenary | 1923 – 2023

The tumultuous 1970s were punctuated by Riopelle’s trips to Canada, where the winter landscapes inspired a cooler palette in his work and new motifs inspired by indigenous culture. Always close to nature, Riopelle’s colorful, richly textured compositions reflect a unique approach to abstraction that the artist himself describes as “the Riopelle atmosphere”.

Riopelle’s abstract pictorial language only reinforces the impressive aspect of the landscape. In his works, his flat strokes are bold, confident and unstoppable, demonstrating the artist’s respect and love for this equally spectacular nature.

In the 1970s, Riopelle made several seaplane journeys to explore the Far North. At high altitude, with a bird’s-eye view, he was able to observe miles of winter landscapes. This influenced an evolution towards a white palette in his work.

The variety of striations in the material are formed by the famous knife and spatula technique developed by Riopelle. Shaping his tools, he adapts them to create flats strokes of varying thickness on the canvas; in our work, this enables him to produce an impression of sedimentary rock strata. Riopelle works with impasto and stretches his paint. This creates an interesting, spiky texture on the surface of the painting.

This impasto of the material is also conducive to the dispersion of colors. The white, which dominates this canvas, only serves to highlight the color accents intermingled between each layer of paint. Thanks to white, the painting adapts to the surrounding light and environment. Some colors appear different depending on how and where the painting is hung.

Riopelle’s rocky landscape is almost reminiscent of the pre-Cubist landscapes of another great master. Paul Cézanne repeatedly painted nature “cut out” in visible, well-defined brushstrokes. He also painted reflections of orange and blue hues on the rock.

Riopelle also uses different colors, including black, to add dimension and nuance to his work. He modernizes Cézanne’s technique by taking it a step further, creating his abstract landscape purely from colorful rectangular strokes, a reference to his signature mosaics of the ’50s.

Riopelle had mentioned the influence of Monet’s work on his own artistic development.  With his partner Joan Mitchell, an artist of the New York Abstract Expressionist school, they settled near Giverny – she in Vétheuil and he in Saint-Cyren-Arthies. Despite their aesthetic differences, they lived together through the late ’50s and into the late ’70s, when their art flourished.

Rhythmized by her energetic, extravagant gesture, Mitchell’s canvases became “abstract expressions” of landscapes. Riopelle’s expressive gesture, however, is more controlled, structured and organized. At opposite poles, these two artists complement each other.