Riopelle, Jean-Paul

born Oct. 7, 1923, Montreal, Que., Can.

died March 12, 2002, Ile-aux-Grues, near Quebec City

Canadian painter and sculptor.

He moved to Paris in 1947 and, with Paul-Émile Borduas, became associated with the group of Canadian painters known as Les Automatistes, who practiced automatism. His early lyrical, abstract paintings evolved into a denser, more powerful impasto style. He is renowned for his use of various media (including watercolour, ink, oils, crayon, and chalk), and he also produced large collage murals. He achieved international acclaim with the huge triptych Pavane (1954) and is the leading Canadian abstract painter of his generation.

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▪ 2003

      Canadian artist (b. Oct. 7?, 1923, Montreal, Que.—d. March 12, 2002, Ile-aux-Grues, Que.), was widely regarded as Canada's most important modern artist; his work, much of which was done in the Abstract Expressionist style, was often compared to that of American artist Jackson Pollock. After studying painting at the École des Beaux-Arts and École du Meuble in Montreal from 1943 to 1945, Riopelle became a founding member of the Automatistes, the first group of abstract painters in Canada. He eventually settled in Paris, where he associated with Surrealists such as André Breton and Marcel Duchamp and where his work first gained international recognition. Riopelle represented Canada at the Venice Biennale in 1954 and won a Guggenheim International Prize in 1958. His work was again chosen for the Venice Biennale in 1962 and was awarded the UNESCO prize that year. In 1963 the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, exhibited 82 of his paintings and sculptures; at the age of 40, Riopelle was the youngest artist ever to be given a retrospective exhibition at the gallery. He spent most of his time in Paris but returned to Canada in the early 1990s, settling permanently in Quebec. He remained a prolific artist in the last decade of his life, and his work became more representational, with the suggestion of landscape marked in many of his paintings. In 2000 his last major work, L'Hommage à Rosa Luxemburg, a narrative fresco of 30 paintings that was more than 40 m (130 ft) long, was acquired by the Museum of Quebec.

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