PROVENANCE
Galerie Jacques Dubourg, Paris
Jerrold Morris International Gallery Ltd., Toronto
Private Collection, Toronto
Canadian Post-War & Contemporary Art, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, May 31, 2008, lot 217
Private Collection, Toronto
Masters Gallery Ltd., Calgary
The Collection of Torben V. Kristiansen, Vancouver

LITERATURE
Guy Cogeval et al, Riopelle, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 2006, essay by Stéphane Aquin, page 41
Yseult Riopelle, Jean Paul Riopelle Catalogue Raisonné, Volume 3, 1960 - 1965, 2009, reproduced page 174, catalogue #1962.062H.1962

By 1960, Jean Paul Riopelle was embracing a more fluid approach to his paintings, which encompassed heavier brushstrokes and a greater reliance on white pigments. Painted in 1962, Nacelle exemplifies this evolving and energetic style, with its heavily impastoed paint and gestural brush-strokes. It is important to note that 1962 was a significant year for Riopelle and his career, that being the year he represented Canada in the Venice Biennale and became the first Canadian to ever win an award from UNESCO. The following year, the National Gallery of Canada gave him his first retrospective and thus he more definitively entered the consciousness of the Canadian public.

The importance of Riopelle is summed up with the following quote by Stéphane Aquin in his essay "Jean-Paul Riopelle’s Critical Migration":

More than anyone else Riopelle was a relay between currents in European thought and the various art trends of the time—surrealism, abstraction, and the great modern painterly tradition running from Courbet to Matisse by way of Monet and Cézanne. His influence on his colleagues was real and concrete.

For the biography on Torben V. Kristiansen in PDF format, please click here.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars