Yseult Riopelle, “Jean Paul Riopelle: Catalogue raisonné des estampes”, Montreal, 2005, illustrated page 315, catalogue #1985.10EST.GR.ALB
In the 1980s, Riopelle spent time on Anticosti Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, both hunting and watching the wild geese. At that time he was living in the Laurentians, 80 miles north of Montreal. Riopelle held a great reverence for nature, something which was sparked during childhood when, through his father, young Riopelle met the legendary Grey Owl (Archie Belaney, a British man, who presented himself as an Iroquois). Riopelle was greatly influenced by Grey Owl’s philosophy of conservationism, to respect nature and the earth. Riopelle produced a suite of prints in 1985 entitled Anticosti, which began with a small abstracted landscape, introducing the theme of wild geese into his body of work.
