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Riopelle,Jean-Paul
born: 1923 Montreal
Jean-Paul Riopelle was a student of mathematics when, in 194o, he discovered
painting and transferred to the art academy in Montreal. In 1947 he went
to Paris, where Surrealist automatism cast its spell on him. Riopelle's
oeuvre developed along the lines of the Ecole de Paris and French art informel,
with affinities to American Action Painting. His earliest works consisted
of large-format canvases executed in the dripping technique. In the early
195os Riopelle began working with palette knife and spatula, which led
him to his inimitably distinctive style around 1952. According to his biographer,
Pierre Schneider, the series of paintings dating from 1952 to 1956, to
which Robe of Stars belongs, is among the most significant in Riopelle's
oeuvre. The gestural element predomi· nates, which has led him to
be called the French counterpart to jackson Pollock. Yet Riopelle's working
method involves the superimposition of several paint layers. First the
paint is flung onto the canvas using a broad brush, and then swaths are
drawn through the wet paint with a spatula, creating a heavily textured,
opalescent surface. In a third step Riopelle applies dense, free-form networks
consisting of thin threads of light-colored paint. Werner Schmalenbach
compares this painting process with a battle with the canvas: "The painter's
tools are wielded like weapons. Painting becomes fencing... The surface
develops into an agitated relie£" Riopelle's paintings seem boundless,
the hues and textures appearing to continue beyond the canvas edge. The
titles of his abstract works are freely invented, and extremely suggestive;
Robe of Stars evokes a shimmering, magnificently hued image oft universe.
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