Lot Essay
To be included in the forthcoming Jean Paul Riopelle Catalogue Raisonné being prepared by Yseult Riopelle, the artist's daughter
Guy Robert describes the year in which Riopelle executed La Dérive as "1952: La cour aux miracles". During this year a succession of events did indeed occur which not only gave Riopelle the economic freedom to develop a technique that led him to achieve stylistic independence, but also led the French art world to recognize him as one of the leading exponents of the Tachist movement.
The most important of these "miracles" took place when Riopelle (now in self-imposed exile in Paris from a Canada that had given him no support for his expressionist abstractions) was finally set free from the limitations of living hand to mouth. In 1952, Pierre Loeb purchased almost his entire oeuvre and Riopelle finally felt able to respond to an ever pressing need to experiment with larger formats.
Landscapes in which everything is motionless and yet everything is alive were still his inspiration and the new large canvases continued to be worked in fits of exhaltation with no interruptions from the first touch to the last. However, we can see that for the first time Riopelle managed to become the master of the canvas. A clearer pattern and design were sought. Compared with works from the late 1940's, La Dérive displays a greater balance and harmony thanks to the dual technique of dripping of paint from a brush and the application of colour with a spatula. Also, white, whilst still giving structure to the composition, no longer dominates the foreground. In order to prevent one from looking at just one plane, white (now accompanied by vibrant yellow) is separated by darker zones of colour. These new webs of colour depict swirling light and energy triumphing over the stillness of a bleak landscape.
Zao Wou-Ki who met and worked alongside Riopelle in Paris during these years said of the latter: "The painting of Jean-Paul evokes, for me, the spontaneity and the freshness of the grand generation of the New York school". Certainly the dripping has much in common with Pollock's technique, although the effect is unique to Riopelle.
In an article published in the October 1952 edition of "Canadian Art", Georges Duthuit underlined the "intensité et l'ébullition vitale de l'oeuvre de Riopelle", stating that the works represented "la torture de la joie de vivre... l'Eden de la pure sensation; formes embryonnaires en perpétuelle fusion..." Duthuit also noted, however, that although the pictures were created whilst the artist was in a trance-like state (often lasting up to ten hours), Riopelle, nevertheless, remained master of the canvas and therefore his style could not be considered completely as "automatism". With such words, Riopelle's international career was launched. In 1953, he would find himself exhibiting at the ICA in London, opposing forces with Pollock, Mathieu, Sam Francis and Henri Michaux and, in 1954, the Pierre Matisse Gallery gave him his first one man show in New York where La Dérive was exhibited and purchased by the present owner.
Guy Robert describes the year in which Riopelle executed La Dérive as "1952: La cour aux miracles". During this year a succession of events did indeed occur which not only gave Riopelle the economic freedom to develop a technique that led him to achieve stylistic independence, but also led the French art world to recognize him as one of the leading exponents of the Tachist movement.
The most important of these "miracles" took place when Riopelle (now in self-imposed exile in Paris from a Canada that had given him no support for his expressionist abstractions) was finally set free from the limitations of living hand to mouth. In 1952, Pierre Loeb purchased almost his entire oeuvre and Riopelle finally felt able to respond to an ever pressing need to experiment with larger formats.
Landscapes in which everything is motionless and yet everything is alive were still his inspiration and the new large canvases continued to be worked in fits of exhaltation with no interruptions from the first touch to the last. However, we can see that for the first time Riopelle managed to become the master of the canvas. A clearer pattern and design were sought. Compared with works from the late 1940's, La Dérive displays a greater balance and harmony thanks to the dual technique of dripping of paint from a brush and the application of colour with a spatula. Also, white, whilst still giving structure to the composition, no longer dominates the foreground. In order to prevent one from looking at just one plane, white (now accompanied by vibrant yellow) is separated by darker zones of colour. These new webs of colour depict swirling light and energy triumphing over the stillness of a bleak landscape.
Zao Wou-Ki who met and worked alongside Riopelle in Paris during these years said of the latter: "The painting of Jean-Paul evokes, for me, the spontaneity and the freshness of the grand generation of the New York school". Certainly the dripping has much in common with Pollock's technique, although the effect is unique to Riopelle.
In an article published in the October 1952 edition of "Canadian Art", Georges Duthuit underlined the "intensité et l'ébullition vitale de l'oeuvre de Riopelle", stating that the works represented "la torture de la joie de vivre... l'Eden de la pure sensation; formes embryonnaires en perpétuelle fusion..." Duthuit also noted, however, that although the pictures were created whilst the artist was in a trance-like state (often lasting up to ten hours), Riopelle, nevertheless, remained master of the canvas and therefore his style could not be considered completely as "automatism". With such words, Riopelle's international career was launched. In 1953, he would find himself exhibiting at the ICA in London, opposing forces with Pollock, Mathieu, Sam Francis and Henri Michaux and, in 1954, the Pierre Matisse Gallery gave him his first one man show in New York where La Dérive was exhibited and purchased by the present owner.