Jean Paul Riopelle (1923–2002) is one of the most important Canadian artists of the last 100 years. His artistic work, created in Canada and France, was associated in the 1960s–70s with lyrical and informal abstract expressionism. A member of the Automatistes artistic movement, he was one of the signatories of the Refus global Manifesto – which promoted moving beyond traditional figurative schemes. The immensity of his oeuvre placed him for decades at the forefront of the generation of artists who revitalized painting after the Second World War.

In close cooperation with the exhibition’s commissioner, Yseult Riopelle – Chevalière de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France, multidisciplinary artist, daughter, and author of the Catalogue Raisonné of Jean Paul Riopelle’s work – the 24 selected works were created between 1981–1984 at Cap Tourmente, a natural reserve in Québec, Canada.

At Cap Tourmente, Jean Paul Riopelle found an oasis conducive to creation, where he observed, studied, and described, like a true artist-researcher, the life, appearance, relationships, and abstract forms traced across the sky by the immense flocks of white geese.