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LOT 031

AUTO CAS OC QMG RCA SCA
1923 - 2002
Canadian

Ovale IV
oil on canvas, 1977
signed and on verso titled Oval IV and inscribed "Brun" and "Y18188"
13 1/8 x 16 1/8 in, 33.3 x 41 cm

Estimate: $40,000 - $60,000 CAD

Sold for: $73,250

Preview at:

PROVENANCE
Galerie Maeght, Paris
Private Collection, Ottawa
Post-War & Contemporary Art, BYDealers, May 29, 2022, lot 63
Private Collection, Toronto

LITERATURE
Yseult Riopelle, Jean Paul Riopelle Catalogue Raisonné, Volume 5, 1972 - 1979, 2020, reproduced page 237, catalogue #1977.107H.1977
Andréanne Roy, Jacques Des Rochers and Yseult Riopelle, editors, Riopelle: The Call of Northern Landscapes and Indigenous Cultures, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 2020, pages 154 and 248


In the 1970s, Jean Paul Riopelle made frequent trips from Paris to spend time in Canada. He built a studio in 1974 at Sainte-Marguerite-du-Lac-Masson in the Laurentians, and also frequented Isle-aux-Grues and Île-aux-Oies in Quebec on hunting and fishing trips with his friend Champlain Charest. The boreal forest of Quebec was a source for his abstract paintings at this time. As Charest stated, “Riopelle always started from something: there was always a substratum to what he produced. Riopelle always began with forms that he liked.” Riopelle’s love for nature and his identification with the territory of Quebec grew in the 1970s. He declared that he moved towards nature in his abstractions, and in this painting, you can feel the presence of the forest through colour - bright orange sparks like autumn leaves emerge from the depths of forest-green and earthy brown tones. Riopelle wielded his palette knife with passion, and here white mixed with other hues presses in from the edges like snow, while daggers of bright white slash across the surface. In Ovale IV, Riopelle’s experience of the boreal forest is distilled with great vitality.


Estimate: $40,000 - $60,000 CAD

All prices are in Canadian Dollars


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