Born in Canada, Jean-Paul Riopelle became a driving force of the European abstract movement after moving to Paris in 1946. Immersed in the Surrealist manifesto of André Breton and the École de Paris, Riopelle was determined to maintain his own identity and encourage his reputation as the ‘wild Canadian’. This independence revealed itself in Riopelle’s unique style of painting, in which the artist used contrasting layers oil paint applied with a knife rather than a brush.

Having first experimented with drips and splashes of colour straight from the tube in the early 1950s, the present works displays Riopelle’s shift in technique. ‘Composition’ is composed of sharp deliberate strokes created with a palette knife that fragments the thick impasto of the paint.

Appearing like shattered glass, in ‘Composition’ Riopelle reimagines the natural world in an abstracted landscape formed from a mosaic of colours. The Sun rises from the blue in a mirage of fiery yellows and oranges. Landscapes dominated Riopelle’s oeuvre throughout his career, providing the artist with a means to re-imagine traditional representational painting. In 1974, the year Riopelle created ‘Composition’, he began to divide his time between St. Marguerite in Quebec and Saint-Cyr-en-Arthies in France. These contrasting yet rural areas, bestowed a wealth of inspiration on the artist.

Riopelle is considered one of the most important Canadian artists of his generation, having represented Canada at the Venice Biennale in both 1954 and 1962. By the 1970s Riopelle’s reputation had reached new heights with retrospectives at Fondation Maeght, Saint Paul-de-Vence in 1971 and the following year at Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. He received an Honourable Mention at the Guggenheim International Award exhibition (1958) and has been the subject of major solo exhibitions at Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne (1958); National Gallery of Canada (1963); Musée du Québec (1967); and Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris (1981).