inscription
JOAN MITCHELL AND JEAN-PUL RIOPELLE MEET JEAN FOURNIER - GALERIE JEAN FOURNIER

JOAN MITCHELL AND JEAN-PUL RIOPELLE MEET JEAN FOURNIER – GALERIE JEAN FOURNIER

22, rue du Bac
Paris 75007
6 June - 20 July 2019
www.galerie-jeanfournier.com

When Jean Fournier opened his gallery on Rue du Bac in November 1963, he brought together works by artists who typified the commitmets he remained faithful to all his life. Among those artists were Joan Mitchell and Jean-Paul Riopelle. In 1964 Fournier presented a solo exhibition by Riopelle and in 1967 the first ten exhibitions by Mitchell – not counting group shows and art fairs – that cotinued until her death in 1992. Proof, if any were needed, of the way these two artists instilled their extraordinary energy into the hisory of a gallery that became their home base and the focal point of their harmony and their procrastinations.

Mitchell and Riopelle were mutually driven not only by their passionate love for each other, but also by their intellectual and artistic intimacy. From their meeting in Paris in 1955until their separation in 1979, their works – rightdown to the titles – testify to the different holiday spots and painting places they shared; in short, to a life ogetherfor which Jean Fournier was privileged travelling companion. Calm and equable by nature, this charismatic figure frequented all sorts of strong-minded artists, to the point of describing himself as a « lay brother ».

So now it seems perfectly natural tha the pair should be united for the first time at the Rue du Bac gallery: a return to the roots. The works chosen match the scale of the venue, forming a kind of intimate, deeply felt trajectory expressive of Fournier’s choices and what still underpines the gallery’s identity today.

In 2017 the gallery was home to an exhibition of Simon Hantai’s work from the 1940s and 1950s. In it, between the lines, could be described a portrait of Jean Fournier as a bold, intuitive figure. When Joan Mitchell and Jean-Paul Riopelle Meet Jean Fournier points up another side of his personality: more intense, more inclined to acute sensitivity and a love of colour.

The exhibition is curated by Michel Martin, curator of the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec in 1975-2008, and organiser of the exhibition Mitchell/Riopelle. Un couple dans la démesure recently presented at the Fonds Edouard et Hélène Leclerc pour la Culture in Landerneau, France.

Powered by WordPress