Text by Pierre B. Landry
An intimate, documented portrait of an iconic artist
Besides being a first-rate biographical chronicle, Jean Paul Riopelle en mouvement (1923-2002) is a considerable work in its own right. Pierre B. Landry paints a portrait of Riopelle the man as well as the artist in the form of a path-making chronology: photographic archives, outstanding records and quotations, and naturally the painter’s seminal works, all combine to give a picture of a life revealed through unprecedentedly thorough research.
In addition to examining Riopelle as a towering figure in the world of painting, Landry examines the period in which he was active, his friendships (mainly French and Québécois) and the various art-historical movements and topics that informed his work and its reception.
Divided into six sections, this account follows the painter’s life from his early years to his death in 2002. A preface by John Porter, founder member and secretary of the Jean Paul Riopelle Foundation, and an afterword by Guillaume Savard, content manager at Espace Riopelle (MNBAQ), round off this exhaustive and essential work on the painter’s life and œuvre.
Jean Paul Riopelle was born in Montreal on 7 October 1923. Introduced by Paul-Émile Borduas to art with an open mind, he took part in the activities of Les Automatistes and signed the Refus Global manifesto (1948). In 1947, he moved to Paris, where he associated with André Breton and the French Surrealists. He then joined the early movements that would engender Lyrical Abstraction, where he came to the attention of the critic Georges Duthuit. Riopelle’s art reached its maturity in the early 1950s with his brightly coloured “mosaic” paintings. Winner of the UNESCO Prize at the Venice Biennale (1962), Riopelle adopted a personal approach in which nature and abstraction are pitted against each other in a constant dynamic tension. Jean Paul Riopelle was a tireless traveller and nature lover and died at his home on Île aux Grues, Quebec, on 12 March 2002.
Pierre B. Landry is an art historian and museologist. He has been associate curator of Canadian art at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, and manager of collections and research at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec. A keen observer of the interplay between the arts, personal narratives and history, Landry is particularly interested in the evolution of museums and the development of their collections. He is the author of 75 ans chrono. Le Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, 1933-2008 (2009); Une histoire de l’art du Québec, la collection du Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (2004); and the catalogue of the National Gallery of Canada: Canadian Art (1988, 1994, 1997).
