Jean-Paul Riopelle

Artist Bio: Jean-Paul Riopelle, RCA (1923-2002)

Jean-Paul Riopelle was born in Montreal and started his education as an engineer at the Ecole Polytechnique. Sooner after, he turned to fine art and enrolled at the l’Ecole du Meuble, where he studied with Paul-Emile Borduas. Riopelle became an abstract painter under Borduas and with him, was a member of the Automatistes, who used a spontaneous method of painting based on the subconscious. In 1947, Riopelle moved to Paris where he developed a technique for painting using large quantities of varied coloured paints applied to the canvas with a trowel. In the early 1970s, he returned to Canada and built a home and studio in the Laurentians. From then on, he divided his time between Canada and Paris.

Riopelle worked in a variety of media, including oil, watercolour, pastel, and lithography.