Over the course of his career, Jean Paul Riopelle continuously expanded his artistic vocabulary through an extraordinary range of techniques and materials. The 1960s marked a particularly fertile period of experimentation, during which he produced an exceptional body of works on paper demonstrating his mastery of ink, gouache, watercolour, and pastel. Created in 1969, this large-scale horizontal pastel belongs to a remarkable group of compositions distinguished by their ambitious format and rich palette of earthy and celestial tones, including ultramarine blue, purple, emerald green, burnt sienna, ochre, and black. The expansive width of the sheet encourages a panoramic reading, evoking the breadth of a landscape while allowing the viewer's eye to travel across a dynamic network of colour and line. The energetic, restless line that animates the composition exemplifies the stylistic shift evident in Riopelle's works on paper during this decade. More tactile and overtly graphic than the watercolours, inks, and oil-on-paper works of the 1950s, these pastels reveal his growing interest in mixed media and the physical possibilities of drawing. At the same time, they signal the resurgence of line as a primary expressive tool within his practice. Sweeping, scribbled, and layered across the surface, these marks impart a remarkable sense of movement and vitality while anticipating the increasingly figurative imagery that would emerge in his later work. As such, this monumental pastel stands as a compelling example of Riopelle's creative freedom at the end of the 1960s, a period in which abstraction, gesture, and allusions to the natural world were brought together with exceptional confidence and energy.

Heffel is proud to be a presenting partner of the inauguration of the new Espace Riopelle – Michael Audain Pavilion at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, opening its doors on October 22.