Sculpture By René Roche

René ROCHE - French artist 1932 - 1992 - Abstract composition - , polychrome terracotta sculpture Signed and dated 12. 73 on the base 33 x 32cm ht 20cm Self-taught artist from Isère, René Roche was introduced to drawing thanks to the industrial design course given at the technical high school. These lessons aroused a strong interest in the young man who had previously been foreign to artistic concerns and constituted the starting point of an intense graphic production. René Roche took a singular stylistic route. While he was a worker in a factory, he forged an artistic culture on his own which led him to free himself from figurative representations. From 1965, he became interested in the reflections led by the pioneers of geometric abstraction of the 1910s, Piet Mondrian and Kasimir Malevich. He then managed to establish the foundations of a personal visual language. Church commissions provided him with a certain financial security, and he finally left working-class life in 1973 to devote himself fully to his art. René Roche's fields of experience were very varied. He used different techniques such as collage, painting on canvas, mural painting, and monumental polychrome metal sculpture (see Synchromie No. 1, 1978, Lyon Part-Dieu). The artist quickly received support from Lyon art critic René Déroudille, and the 1980s saw his art gaining recognition from local institutions. Public commissions increased, and the artist's works were included in the collections of the Fonds régional d'art contemporain (FRAC). René Roche developed an abstract and universal formal language in which color and the light it emanates play a central role. In 1974, he created his first collages, where color becomes material. These are monochrome papers cut out and harmoniously arranged then glued onto a flat surface. The arrangement of these pure forms is the result of a long process of reflection. René Roche's work, where nothing is left to chance, is governed by a concern for purity and harmony. The artist's handwritten note at the bottom left of the collage we are offering indicates that it would be preparatory to a wall decoration.