Jean-Paul Riopelle (1923-2002)
Abstract Composition, 1954
oil on canvas
12 x 16 in. (30.4 x 40.6 cm.)
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Works from Private Collections
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October 16 – November 1, 2025
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Jean Paul Riopelle (1923–2002) stands among Canada’s most celebrated artists. His bold, gestural “mosaic” compositions of the 1950s, created with pure colour and palette knife application, placed him at the forefront of the postwar abstract movements of the mid-20th century.
The works comprising ‘Riopelle: Works From Private Collections’ have been previously sold through Masters Gallery and generously loaned by private collectors. Together they span three vital decades of the artist’s career, celebrating Riopelle’s enduring achievement as a major figure of international art while marking the upcoming 50th anniversary of Masters Gallery, founded in 1976.
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OPENING RECEPTION
Saturday, October 18, 1 – 4 PM
Talk by Ryan Green on Jean-Paul Riopelle at 2 PM
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EXHIBITED IN DIALOGUE WITH JEAN-PAUL RIOPELLE |
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Natalie Vassil
From a Simple Drop of Rain
oil on canvas
53 x 187 in. (4 x 15.25 ft.)
$ 33,000 CAD.
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Natalie Vassil’s From a Simple Drop of Rain echoes the expressive freedom and natural lyricism found in Riopelle’s work, translating those impulses into a contemporary meditation on connection and renewal.
Reflecting on how something as small as a single drop can give rise to beauty, growth, and community, Vassil draws on her experiences in the big sky country of Alberta and the lush west coast of Central Africa to explore how nature mirrors the vibrant, interdependent structures of human life.
With its commanding scale and sweeping energy, the painting becomes more than a landscape: it is a meditation on our shared humanity and inseparable bond with the earth. Vassil invites us to pause, look closely, and rediscover the beauty that unites us.
Artist in attendance for opening reception October 18th 1-4 PM.
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Beyond her unusual artistic path, Natalie Vassil has continually questioned what defines us and what keeps us from truly encountering one another.
Coming from a bicultural family that frequently relocated, the artist felt for larger part of her life uprooted. After a financial career in New York, Natalie Vassil embarked on her own personal pilgrimage through her writings and paintings.
Over time, she has attempted to explore the journeys that shape our worlds, both through the multiple steps of the small figures on the canvas and those of her own travels that made her question the profound meaning of community and of "being together." At that junction, connection and transmission took on an entirely new meaning in her art, through what she refers to as "our shared trajectories". At the heart of these communities true wealth is measured in time spend together and shared experiences.
Following the loss of a loved one, the artist turned her thoughts toward our freedoms and divided spaces—not as an end, but as an ongoing thread between generations. The infinite found its way into her journey through shared memories.
Her multiple figures both as symbols of evolution and of our connection to time. Their dotted lines evoke the power of ancestral art, drawing from hidden symbols where the past meets the present, blending with our contemporary world.
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