Vendu pour : $21,250

PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from the Artist in Sainte-Marguerite-du-Lac-Masson circa 1987 by the present Private Collection, Montreal

BIBLIOGRAPHIE
This work will be included in Yseult Riopelle's forthcoming Volume 7 of the catalogue raisonné on the artist's work

This enigmatic painting is an exemplary work from Jean Paul Riopelle’s later production, likely executed around 1986, when he was living in Sainte-Marguerite-du-Lac-Masson, Quebec. Beginning in the mid-1970s, Riopelle’s style began yet another major shift toward something wholly original. Like so many great artists, Riopelle is recognized for his propensity to reinvent his approach to painting many times over. Setting this work next to a Riopelle from any previous decade accentuates the breadth of his accomplishments. One might expect that a painter of Riopelle’s experience – after several decades and hundreds of significant canvases to his name – would be hard-pressed to find a new means of expression, and yet here we see a mature and compelling sensibility miles away from the impasto of the 1950s and 1960s.

In Sans titre, we encounter many of the familiar themes that we know from his oeuvre, beginning with the palpable tension between the figurative and the abstract. Riopelle almost paradoxically rejected the notion of abstraction, and yet, he rarely presents an explicitly literal depiction of the subject he has in mind. Here, as suggested by the inscription “Né en 1909,” the subject might be a person – so are we looking at a portrait? And if so, this painting seems to defy that visual possibility. Perhaps the central form might have bird-like qualities? It is certainly another familiar theme from this time, such as his series on white geese. Whatever “form” there may be, is described using layers of paint in red, black and grey on white with an almost calligraphic touch, surrounded and supported by a patchwork of dots that maintain a sense of vibration throughout. The elusive “subject” appears to dissolve into the white, diffusing the tension. This circle of possible interpretations gives us pause, allowing for the time required to take in the dynamic effects Riopelle plays with.

This work was acquired directly from the artist in 1987, shortly after its creation, and comes to market having never changed hands since that time.

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