Informations directionnelles

Continuer sur 500 m jusqu’à un carrefour. Prendre à droite sur 400 m jusqu’à un carrefour. La table de lecture du paysage se trouve près d’un noyer isolé sur la gauche.

Prochain point : Lat. 49.05457, Long. 1.74449

The former studio of Jean-Paul Riopelle
A place of creation and inspiration

A major artist of the 20th century…

Jean-Paul Riopelle (1923-2002) was an artist of international aura who marked the art of the 20th century. Born in Montreal, he moved to Paris in 1947 ; from then on he lived between France and Canada. Accomplished artist, he was a painter, engraver, sculptor, mosaicist and ceramist. Influenced by different international trends of modern art such as Surrealism, lyrical abstraction or even abstract Expressionism, Jean-Paul Riopelle developed all along his career a unique artistic expression, half way between abstraction and figuration. He was particularly inspired by nature to render abstract rather than realistic sensibility. Meeting the artist Joan Mitchell in 1955 also helped him feed his creativity. He had with her the most passionate loving relationship until 1979. One of his masterpieces, the imposing painting Hommage à Rosa Luxembourg, was made after Joan Mitchell died in 1992, as a tribute to their life together.

… strongly bonded to the French Vexin

At the end of the 1960s, Joan Mitchell and Jean-Paul Riopelle bought a house in Vétheuil. Jean-Paul Riopelle also bought a studio in Saint-Cyr-en-Arthies, at the heart of the Vexin countryside. It was the landscapes surrounding Saint-Cyr and Vétheuil he liked to depict in several paintings and prints, such as Les Saisons à Saint-Cyr-en-Arthies. Place of creation, his studio was also organized to host the artist’s vintage cars on the ground floor. Jean-Paul Riopelle and Joan Mitchell were regulars in Vétheuil and Saint-Cyr-en-Arthies. A true anecdote is that of the two artists getting bogged down in a path with their Bugatti : with the help of a farmer they managed to come out of this rut to the cost of Joan Mitchell’s mink fur coat she had to spread underneath the car wheels. The studio was restored in the years 2010 and is now a private property.