Sold for: $391,250

PROVENANCE
Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York
Marlborough-Gerson Gallery Inc., New York
Important Canadian Art, Sotheby's Canada in association with Ritchie's, November 18, 2003, lot 116
Private Collection, Toronto

LITERATURE
Gilles Vigneault et al., Jean-Paul Riopelle, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1991, pages 34 and 35
Yseult Riopelle, Jean Paul Riopelle Catalogue Raisonné, Volume 2, 1954 - 1959, 2004, reproduced page 319, catalogue #1959.010H/1959

This is an outstanding example of Jean Paul Riopelle’s work from 1959 to 1960 discussed by Herta Wescher in a 1960 article in Cimaise. As she described these works: “The dense mosaics characteristic of his paintings of ten years ago have been broken up, allowing space to enter from all sides. Now order and chaos intermingle; diagonals, curves and sharp hooks attack the verticals, voids are trapped at the heart of incredibly crowded centres…” During this time, Riopelle gave his works titles more evocative of landscape, and Engloutis, which translates as “engulfed or swallowed up,” perhaps refers to density in natural growth. This work is infused with a vital power created by its thick layers of paint and the sheer innovative variety of knife-strokes, which interact in every direction. They vibrate both on the surface and in depths of dimensionality. Riopelle’s knife-strokes still relate to his mosaic work, but they do not form the tight pattern of such paintings as Pavane, his masterpiece canvas from 1954. Spears of white rise up from pale grounds and over depths of black, while multicoloured hues explode everywhere. Engloutis is a painting of tremendous vitality, drawing our eye, as Harry Bellet writes, “in headlong pursuit of the painter’s frenetic brushwork.”

All prices are in Canadian Dollars