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LOT 035

AUTO CAS OC QMG RCA SCA
1923 - 2002
Canadian

Sans titre
oil on paper on canvas
signed and dated 1960
25 7/8 x 20 in, 65.7 x 50.8 cm

Estimate: $30,000 - $50,000 CAD

Sold for: $31,250

Preview at: Heffel Toronto – 13 Hazelton Ave

PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Montreal
Sold sale of Canadian Post-War & Contemporary Art, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, November 20, 2019, lot 35

LITERATURE
Yseult Riopelle, Jean Paul Riopelle Catalogue Raisonné, Volume 3, 1960 - 1965, 2009, reproduced page 234 and listed page 491, catalogue #1960.002P.1960
Michel Martin et al., Mitchell / Riopelle: Nothing in Moderation, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec and Art Gallery of Ontario, 2017, page 26

Please note: this work was physically inspected at 13 Hazelton Ave, Toronto, on November 1, 2019.


At the start of the 1960s, Jean Paul Riopelle and the American artist Joan Mitchell were living in Paris. By then, their individual art, an integral part of their personal relationship, had developed a kind of symbiotic relationship. The precursor to this 1960 painting was the work Riopelle did with gouache in the late 1950s – his brushwork was fluid, and he included patches of white, as we see here. Riopelle revealed Mitchell’s influence in his 1956 letter to her, while she was away working in her New York studio: “I’m at the studio, where I’ve just been trying to paint with gouache. I don’t know if it worked but I’m happier because ultimately these large gouaches…resemble your paintings, my love” (see lot 9 in this sale). This oil on paper work is a fine example of the lyrical approach Riopelle developed in the late 1950s in concert with the direction of Mitchell’s work at the time. In Sans titre, paint drips, loosely calligraphic flourishes of red and black dance, and soft swipes of white float across the surface with a cloud-like transparency, creating a sensuous, tumbling movement of form and colour.


Estimate: $30,000 - $50,000 CAD

All prices are in Canadian Dollars


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