La Piscine’s Works by Jean Roulland

Roubaix, France, June 30, 2013 --(PR.com)-- Jean Roulland, an artist whose fame goes well beyond the region is an unavoidable figure of the Roubaix Group which blossomed after the Second World War thanks to the support of the city’s collectors, art patrons and galleries. Echoing the hommage to Jean Roulland programmed by the Calais Fine Arts Museum, the Villeneuve d’Ascq LAM and Lille’s Hospice Comtesse Museum, this summer La Piscine will exhibit its Roulland collection of over 63 works by the artist. Born in 1931, in Croix, Jean Roulland studied at the Roubaix Fine Arts School from 1946 to 1951. He was first committed to a painting style in a cubist spirit that he was taught by René Jacob at the Roubaix Fine Arts School, and that he presented at the Roubaix Artists Show and the Parenthou Gallery in Roubaix in 1953.

In 1956, his discovery of Germaine Richier’s works in the Dujardin Gallery in Roubaix, an artist defended and collected by the Roubaix industrialist Philippe Leclercq, was decisive in his definitive turning to sculpture. For some ten years, he worked in a ceramic company so that at night he could devote himself to his work as an artist. In 1961, he adopted the cire perdu (lost-wax casting) technique and quickly affirmed himself as one of the most important bronze makers of his time. In a tradition of Femish expressionism that he took on and renewed with great force, he developed a very personal style and quickly imposed himself as the great bronze maker of his generation in the North of France.

His work was without concession, rejecting all decorative aspects and aimed at the precision of expressions and attitudes. Reflecting on human suffering constituted a predominant if not the unique theme in his art. The Piscine’s very beautiful Jean Roulland collection is composed of 10 sculptures, 47 drawings, 1 painting, 1 etching, 1 ceramic piece, 2 posters, and 1 illustrated book. Numerous important gifts granted by the Halluin-Leclercq family in 1998 and 2001, as well as an article coming from the Michel Delporte bequest in 2001 have been gathered around the small painting purchased by the city at the Roubaix Artists Show in 1953. Besides regular purchases by the city, supported by the Friends of La Piscine, in 2008, the museum received an extraordinary private donation of large, highly energetic and colourful pastels and more recently, in 2013, a new deposit of a painting and a sculpture from the MUBA museum in Tourcoing.

Curator Amandine Delcourt, General Curator and Germain Hirselj, Scientific curator.

Catalogue The exhibition is accompanied by a new volume in the monograph catalogue series of the Piscine’s primary collections. After a brief presentation of the collection by Bruno Gaudichon, a passionate and very complete text by Germain Hirselj, the exhibition’s scientific curator, retraces the artist’s life. Jérôme Fourmanoir, Doctor in Art History, has collected the precious testimony of a private collector, faithful friend of La Piscine and admirer of Jean Roulland. Invenit Publishing, 144 pages, 150 illustrations, 16x23.5cm, 20€.

Press contacts
Regional press
Marion Leclercq
La Piscine
tel + 33.(0)3.20.69.23.65
marionleclercq@ville-roubaix.fr
www.roubaix-lapiscine.com

National and international press
Emmanuelle Toubiana
Tambour Major
tel + 33.(0)1.39.53.71.60
cell + 33 (0)6.77.12.54.08
emmanuelle@tambourmajor.com

Practical information
Admission
Exhibition: 5.5€ / 4€ with access to the permanent collections
Combined ticket for the Elisabeth de Senneville exhibition and permanent collections: 8€ / 5€
Free for under 18 and the first Sunday of the month.

Hours
Tuesday to Thursday from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm
Friday 11:00 am to 8:00 pm
Saturday and Sunday from 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm
Closed on Mondays, July 14 and August 15.