Jean-Paul Riopelle - Definition and Overview

La Joute, by Jean-Paul Riopelle

Jean-Paul Riopelle (7 October 1923 - 12 March 2002) was a painter and sculptor from Quebec.

He studied under Paul-Émile Borduas in the 1940s and was a member of Les Automatistes movement. He was one of the signers of the Refus global manifesto. In 1949 he moved to Paris and continued his career as an artist.

In 1969 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada, and began to spend more time in Canada.

His paintings fetch a high price, and one result of this has been a bitter legal dispute over his will between his survivors, pitting his children against his life partner. Another controversy involved the disposition of his work La Joute, a public sculpture in Montreal.