Riopelle: The Call of Northern Landscapes and Indigenous Cultures

October 23, 2021 – February 21, 2022

Riopelle: The Call of Northern Landscapes and Indigenous Cultures focused on the artist’s engagement with Canada’s northern landscape and emblematic use of Indigenous motifs to construct highly complex paintings, prints and sculptures. Jean Paul Riopelle was a member of the Montreal-based collective known as les automatistes that embraced Surrealist ideals during the 1940s, and he would go on to become a leading Tachisme or Action Painter in Paris throughout the 1950s and 1960s. On his frequent trips back to Quebec, the renowned artist immersed himself in the province’s rugged northern terrain, while continuing a long held respect for contemporary and historic Indigenous art from British Columbia, Alaska, Quebec and Nunavut. The core of this exhibition and accompanying publication examined Riopelle’s expansive production from the 1950s onward, with an emphasis on his rarely studied practice of the 1970s.

The exhibition was developed, organized and circulated by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. It was curated by guest curators Andréanne Roy and Yseult Riopelle as well as by Jacques Des Rochers, Curator of Quebec and Canadian Art (before 1945), MMFA.

The Museum is grateful to partners of the Canadian Tour, the Government of Canada and the Jean Paul Riopelle Foundation. Audain Art Museum Presenting Sponsor the Audain Foundation, Major Sponsors BMO and Heffel Fine Art Auction House, Supporting Sponsor Dentons, Government Partner the Resort Municipality of Whistler, and Hotel Partner Fairmont Chateau Whistler.