Biography

Jean-Paul Riopelle first began studying mathematics in 1940. But a short time later he gave up his studies again. Riopelle turned to painting and studied at the art academy in Montreal. He was a student of the Canadian Paul-Emile Borduas. In 1947 Riopelle left Montreal and moved to Paris. There he became acquainted with the contemporary movements of action painting, surrealism and automatism as well as with Tachisme and Informal artists such as the German-French painter, graphic artist and musician Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze, better known under the artist name Wols. Riopelle was impressed by his works and was influenced by his search for his own stylistic language.

Riopelle himself then found action painting, of which he became the best-known representative from Canada. He first realized this technique in its purest form by letting paint drip onto the canvas. After 1945, Jean Paul Riopelle joined a circle of young French-Canadian artists, the "Les Automastistes". They owe their name to their spontaneous way of working. From 1950 he changed his technique. A lush chromaticism and the spatulated patches of color that he distributed over the entire picture surface in the manner of Jackson Pollock's "all-over painting" were typical of Riopelle's artistic expressiveness of this time. He created his works in several steps: he threw the paint onto the canvas and made paths with the spatula. He then decorated the template with thin colored threads, which gave the surface a grid-like structure.

His colorful mosaic-like images in the style of Abstract Expressionism later found international recognition. In 1955 he met the American painter Joan Mitchel, who painted in abstract expressionism. She became his partner. The work entitled "Encounter" was created in 1956. In 1959 he moved into an apartment in Paris with Joan Mitchel. In 1968 they both moved to Vétheuil, near Giverny. Claude Monet's retirement home was also there. In 1979 Riopelle separated and Mitchell. In the sixties, Riopelle varied his style by concentrating and structuring colored forms. The subjects appear like abstract landscapes. In 1963, for example, the title "June" was created in this style and three years later "The Mountain".

It was only during this time that Jean-Paul Riopelle became known and his works were received by a broad public. In 1962, Jean-Paul Riopelle was honored with the UNESCO Prize at the Biennale. He made sculptures and fountains for the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. His friends included personalities such as the French playwright and storyteller Samuel Beckett, the Swiss sculptor, draftsman and painter Alberto Giacometti and the French writer André Breton. In 2002, Riopelle's works were shown at the group exhibition "Art Chicago 2002".

Jean-Paul Riopelle died on March 12, 2002 at the age of seventy-two in Ile-aux-Grues near Quebec.
- IMDb mini biography by: Christian_Wolfgang_Barth