Description
Book SynopsisA revealing reading of Jean Paul Riopelle's artistic method through the enduring influence of a short and intense involvement with the Automatiste movement.
Trade Review"This fascinating, important, and superbly structured book has the effect of asserting Riopelle's originality not only with respect to the Montreal Automatistes, but also to American painting and to Pollock in particular. Jean Paul Riopelle and the Automatiste Movement stands out for its originality, its profound insights, and the beauty of its language." Lora Senechal Carney, author of Canadian Painters in a Modern World, 1925–1955: Writings and Reconsiderations
"This well-illustrated study of Canadian abstract painter Jean Paul Riopelle (1923–2002) examines the artist's student days in the early 1940s at Montreal's École du Mueble and his work in the decade following, work often compared to the widely celebrated paintings of Jackson Pollack. In the present book the late Gagnon (whose father was a contemporary of and commentator on Borduas and the Automatistes) links Riopelle's independent and rebellious temperament to technique. When Riopelle broke with the Automatistes, abandoning subconscious influence for a realm of total chance, he declared, "When I hesitate, I don't paint: when I paint, I don't hesitate."" Choice
