{"id":345047,"date":"2026-03-14T00:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T00:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/345047\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T00:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T00:06:09","slug":"michael-audain-donates-37-works-by-riopelle-to-musee-national-des-beaux-arts-du-quebec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/345047\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Audain donates 37 works by Riopelle to Mus\u00e9e national des beaux-arts du Qu\u00e9bec"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

A rendering of the inside of the Espace Riopelle at the Mus\u00e9e national des beaux-arts du Qu\u00e9bec in Quebec City. The pavilion is set to open in October.Mus\u00e9e national des beaux-arts\/Supplied<\/p>\n

Not so long ago, Jean Paul Riopelle was at risk of becoming an artist without honour in his own country.<\/p>\n

The last years of one of Canada\u2019s greatest painters were a sad denouement spent on an island northeast of Quebec City, \u201cdrinking himself silly\u201d and making \u201cprogressively more deranged\u201d pictures of snow geese and owls, in the words of critic and curator Sarah Milroy. His reputation suffered accordingly.<\/p>\n

Shortly after Riopelle\u2019s death in 2002, a fire sale of his works through a Montreal and Palm Beach auction house threatened to scatter a major part of his oeuvre and depress his market, prompting legal action from his daughters and disgust in the Canadian art<\/a> world.<\/p>\n

Review: The National Gallery\u2019s Riopelle retrospective is as much an homage to the artist as an argument for his relevance<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think Canada ever really \u2018got\u2019 Riopelle,\u201d said Miriam Shiell, a prominent Toronto dealer, at the time.<\/p>\n

You wouldn\u2019t say that any more. Since the lead-up to the 2023 centenary of his birth, a wave of appreciation has washed over the artist in Canada, with major shows in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto, plus the creation of the Fondation Jean Paul Riopelle to spread awareness of his legacy. A cascade of record auction prices have piled up in the past decade.<\/p>\n

The capstone of the Riopelle homecoming will arrive this fall with the opening of the Espace Riopelle \u2013 Pavillon Michael Audain at Quebec City\u2019s Mus\u00e9e national des beaux-arts du Qu\u00e9bec. It has been spearheaded and bankrolled by a figure who, in some ways, is a most unlikely patron \u2013 and who shows how truly pan-Canadian Riopelle\u2019s reassessment has been.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

A rendering of the exterior of the Espace Riopelle at the Mus\u00e9e national des beaux-arts du Qu\u00e9bec.Mus\u00e9e national des beaux-arts\/Supplied<\/p>\n

Michael Audain is one of the most important cultural philanthropists in B.C. His collections and donations of Emily Carr and West Coast First Nations work have made him a household name in the province\u2019s art world.<\/p>\n

It turns out he is also an obsessive Riopelle fan, and has quietly amassed a huge private collection of the artist\u2019s pieces, especially the coveted palette knife \u201cmosaic\u201d canvases from the 1950s. <\/p>\n

In a move that has gone mostly unnoticed outside of Quebec, Audain donated his trove of Riopelles to the Mus\u00e9e national earlier this year. The 37 works, spanning the artist\u2019s career, will be housed in the museum\u2019s new pavilion, scheduled to open in October. The value of his gift totals $91.3-million, including $76.9-million in artworks. The rest will go toward the museum and a chair in art history.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Jardin, 1957 by Jean Paul RiopelleJean Paul Riopelle\/Collection of Michael Audain and Yoshiko Karasawa\/Supplied<\/p>\n

Audain\u2019s love affair with Riopelle began at an early age. While studying at a private boarding school in Port Hope, Ont., he visited an art exhibition in Peterborough with his headmaster. A Riopelle was hanging on the wall. \u201cI said, \u2018What is this?\u2019\u201d Audain recalled in a recent interview. \u201cHe said, \u2018That\u2019s called abstract art.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Abstraction is a term Riopelle abjured, but much of his best-known work is non-figurative, characterized by a thick accretion of paint that takes on a sculptural quality. His work was also deeply influenced by his quarter-century-long relationship with American painter Joan Mitchell, who is often associated with the abstract expressionists.<\/p>\n

Whatever you want to call Riopelle\u2019s style, Audain was drawn to it. <\/p>\n

\u201cOver time I would see his art abroad, in France, and I was attracted to the energy and also that it was essentially concerned with nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

He began collecting the artist around 1990 and never looked back. Eventually, his living room walls were floor-to-ceiling Riopelles.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Les oies sur la ville, 1983-1984 by Jean Paul Riopelle.Jean Paul Riopelle\/Collection of Michael Audain and Yoshiko Karasawa\/Supplied<\/p>\n

The two men never met, although Audain says he felt a certain intimacy from living alongside Riopelle\u2019s work for so long. Even now, he isn\u2019t sure they would get along: one English, one French; one a straight-laced home-building magnate, the other a hard-partying bohemian; one good at making money, the other at spending it (Riopelle loved antique cars, among other luxuries).<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t stay up all night drinking,\u201d Audain said. \u201cHe probably wouldn\u2019t want to have much to do with me as a business person.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the art \u2013 along with a mutual love of Maurice Richard and the Montreal Canadiens \u2013 that connects them across time and space. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Michael Audain’s collections and donations of Emily Carr and West Coast First Nations work have made him a household name in Quebec’s art world.Audain Foundation\/Supplied<\/p>\n

Audain gradually began realizing just how significant Riopelle and his cohort were. A signatory of the 1948 anti-establishment manifesto Refus global and a member of the Automatistes movement, with its quest for \u201cresplendent anarchy,\u201d Riopelle was part of a generation of Quebec painters that \u201cwere absolutely at the forefront of modern art in a way no Canadian artist had ever been,\u201d Audain said.<\/p>\n

During visits to Montreal, the city of Riopelle\u2019s birth, Audain learned that other major collectors felt the same \u2013 notably the mining industry veteran and financier Pierre Lassonde and members of the Desmarais family (of the Power Corporation of Canada). Together they created the Fondation Jean Paul Riopelle and, after the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts pulled out over financial concerns, decided to locate their temple to the artist in Quebec City.<\/p>\n

The new pavilion \u2013 built partly with provincial funds provided \u2013 overlooks the Plains of Abraham. Audain is satisfied that Riopelle will have a permanent home in Quebec, in a museum dedicated to Quebec art, not far from the artist\u2019s beloved last home on Isle-aux-Grues.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Iceberg no. 3, 1977 by Jean Paul Riopelle.Jean Paul Riopelle\/Collection of Michael Audain and Yoshiko Karasawa\/Supplied<\/p>\n

The museum hopes the pavilion, and especially its top story, which will house Riopelle\u2019s monumental L\u2019Hommage \u00e0 Rosa Luxemburg, will become a global tourist draw.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople go to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa,\u201d said Fabrice Alcayde, executive director of the museum\u2019s foundation. \u201cWe want to recreate that.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all a long way from the fire sale and legal battles of the early 2000s, when Riopelle\u2019s standing at home was dimming. Today, few members of the country\u2019s art world would loudly object to Audain\u2019s assessment of the Quebec painter\u2019s worth.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d call him the pre-eminent Canadian artist of the 20th century.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: A rendering of the inside of the Espace Riopelle at the Mus\u00e9e national…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[2522,307,304,2511,305,306,2523,2476,2503,2524,289,2502,2516,2517,2513,2504,2501,308,113,835,93,246,2515,2509,2533,2505,2506,1523,61,60,2512,166,1529,2525,768,2528,2529,2531,2526,2530,2152,2527,2507,2519,2520,1650,2518,2153,2510,80,2521,2514,2508,268,2532],"class_list":["post-345047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-alberta","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-arts-news","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-design","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-entertainment","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}