Northern Exposure

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Jean Paul Riopelle, “Les masques,” 1964

oil on canvas, 6′ x 12′ (Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec; © Estate of Jean Paul Riopelle / SOCAN, 2021; photo by MNBAQ, Idra Labrie)

Internationally recognized for his formless automatiste abstracts early in his career, Jean Paul Riopelle left an indelible mark on Canadian art. Devotees will be pleased, dismayed, or perhaps both, with Riopelle: The Call of Northern Landscapes and Indigenous Cultures, on view at the Audain Art Museum in Whistler, B.C., until Feb. 21.

The exhibition consists of paintings, drawings, lithographs and one sculpture inspired by Riopelle’s repeated visits to Nunavut and northern Quebec in the 1970s. It’s the first time his northern work has been shown in its entirety, and the show, organized by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, is now touring across Canada, with an upcoming stop at the Glenbow in Calgary.

The tour, partially sponsored by the new Jean Paul Riopelle Foundation, chaired by Michael Audain, is helping pave the way for celebrations of the 2023 centenary of Riopelle’s birth. When the foundation was unveiled in 2019, Audain owned more than 30 works by Riopelle.

Curtis Collins, the Audain's director and chief curator, says landscape has always been central to understanding Riopelle, who regarded it as a feeling rather than a literal translation.

“It’s a perception of the landscape. He would consider even those works from the ’50s and ’60s as a field of vision.” 

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Jean Paul Riopelle, “L’esprit de la ficelle,” 1971

acrylic on lithograph mounted on canvas, 5′ x 12′ (private collection; © Estate of Jean Paul Riopelle / SOCAN, 2021; photo archives catalogue raisonné Jean Paul Riopelle)

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Noah Arpatuq Echalook, “Woman Playing a String Game,” 1987

dark green stone, ivory and hide, 10″ x 15″ x 9″ (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, purchased in 1991; © Fédération des coopératives du Nouveau-Québec; photo by NGC)

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Riopelle’s later pieces are familiar, but different too. The energy is there. So is the impasto. But as we progress through the galleries, each devoted to a particular theme and era, the figurative and the representational become more obvious. Grand duc references the owl, important in Indigenous culture. L’esprit de la ficelle recalls Inuit string games, a pastime for young and old alike. 

It’s in the gallery labelled Icebergs that Riopelle’s interpretation of landscape really comes to the fore. Stark black and white abstracts like Paysage d’autrefois convey the vastness of the Arctic. The pieces are evocative. One can almost feel the cold and the isolation.

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Jean Paul Riopelle, “Paysage d’autrefois,” 1977

oil on canvas, 52″ x 38″ (private collection; © Estate of Jean Paul Riopelle/ SOCAN, 2021)

The exhibition concludes with a series of lithographs and silverpoint drawings that refer to Indigenous culture. Untitled, Pl.1, for instance, features a pile-driver, a tool used to anchor salmon nets to the ground. The actual tool sits in a nearby display case. Unlike his trips to northern Quebec, Riopelle never made it to the West Coast and relied on books and photographs instead.

In fact, Riopelle first appropriated First Nations’ culture in 1955, while in Paris, with two abstract gouaches, Sous le mythe de Gitksan no. 3 and no. 4. Northwest Coast art was new to Riopelle and his contemporaries, who often played with Indigenous themes without giving much thought to the cultures from which they came.

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Jean Paul Riopelle, “Pangnirtung,” 1977

oil on canvas, 6.5′ x 18′ (Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec; © Estate of Jean Paul Riopelle / SOCAN, 2021; photo by MNBAQ, Idra Labrie)

“I’ll be honest,” says Collins. “I was hesitant, very hesitant, for those very reasons around appropriation, around provenance.” 

Collins says he consulted with local Indigenous leaders and, as a result, the show is peppered with Indigenous works, including Inuit sculptures, to provide context.  

“The exhibition reads very differently in B.C. than in Montreal,” says Collins. For instance, the Audain show draws heavily on its collection of Northwest Coast masks, including pieces by Beau Dick and Willie Seaweed. Both were Kwakwaka'wakw chiefs and wood carvers. 

Collins says he hopes this context will help visitors appreciate Riopelle’s stylistic and technical evolution.

“As much as it’s about his work, it’s also about his travels and new things that he’s experimenting with and what he’s looking at,” says Collins. “It positions the museum in taking a risk, but it opens up a space of conversation, and I think opening up helps us move forward.” ■

Riopelle: The Call of Northern Landscapes and Indigenous Cultures at the Audain Art Museum in Whistler, B.C., from Oct. 23, 2021 to Feb. 21, 2022.  

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