JEAN-PAUL RIOPELLE | Composition

Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner in 1989

The colours in the printed catalogue illustration are fairly accurate. Very close inspection reveals tiny broken impastoes to the extreme lower edge and an uplift to the upper edge of the center of the composition which seems to be stable. UV inspection reveals two tiny areas of inpainting to the extreme lower edge.
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Cette composition en noir et blanc réalisée en 1977 préfigure de façon quasi prophétique la fameuse série des Icebergs que l'artiste réalise l'année suivante après avoir voyagé en Terre de Baffin, dans le grand Nord canadien, où il découvre des paysages insoupçonnés qui ne le laissent pas indemne. Dans cette œuvre dans laquelle s'affrontent des forces contraires, Riopelle, jusqu'ici maître de la couleur, abandonne sa palette chamarrée pour explorer la matière dans toutes ses possibilités. Il entame ainsi un processus identitaire, simplifiant son vocabulaire pour retranscrire les formes éblouissantes qui l'obsèdent, tantôt « enveloppées d'une neige tendre », tantôt « insidieusement dissoutes » selon les mots de Pierre Schneider.   

In an almost prophetic way, this black and white composition from 1977 prefigures the famous Icebergs series the artist created the following year after travelling to Baffin Island, in the great Canadian North, where he was deeply marked by the discovery of fantastic landscapes. In this work representing strong opposing forces, Riopelle, who was a master of color up until then, abandoned his multicolored palette to explore the meanders of the matter. He thus started a quest of identity, simplifying his vocabulary in order to transcribe his obsessive and stunning shapes sometimes "wrapped up in soft snow", sometimes "insidiously dissolved" - as Pierre Schneider put it.



This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity delivered by Yseult Riopelle.