Feuilles VI (1967)

Albert White Gallery (1967) Private Collection, Toronto

Yseult Riopelle, “Jean Paul Riopelle: Catalogue raisonné des estampes”, Montreal, 2005, page 22; illustrated pages 23 & 148, catalogue #1967.10EST.LI

“Riopelle liked to say that he derived his sense of space not from the vast forests of Canada but from a single leaf, which, if looked at from the right distance, contains the whole forest. No doubt, partly in jest, he had a few leaves sent from Canada. René Le Moigne covered them with ink and they gave rise to the first true series, consisting of seven prints. This was when Rioplle first realized that simple objects could both orient a composition and pre-empt the hand’s hesitation before a blank sheet. It was something he would never forget. In this inaugural series, the image entitled ‘Feuilles VI’ (1967.10, p. 148) is the most programmatic, featuring a totemic composition of which each component could have been a work in its own right. The lower section is a study in textures, characteristic of the early sheets in the series; the upper section, with its hidden ‘animal’ (portrayed negatively, using a scraping technique), reappears in precisely the same form, with only a few chromatic variations, in another series produced in the same year; the small black element in the centre, with its right-facing profile and subtle interior drawing that may conjure the figure’s memory, seems to offer various possibilities of articulation with the other two coloured masses.” -Yseult Riopelle, “Jean Paul Riopelle: Catalogue raisonné des estampes”, Montreal, 2005, page 22