Artists

Odilon Roche

French, 1868-1947

Odilon Roche was born in Chteauneuf-sur-Loire.  He was a professional wine taster who traveled around Europe attending wine fairs.  In about 1900 he opened a shop selling artists’ supplies in Paris , where Renoir, Maurice Denis, Pissaro, Zuloaga and Steinlen were customers.  In 1905 he opened a second shop where he was one of the first people to display Chinese antiques, which Anatole Franc, the gastronome Curnonsky and the Guitrys came to see.  The shop was opulent and Honegger, Sauguet, Auric and Casadesus held their first concerts there.  Colette and Coco Chanel were also customers.

No one knows how he learned to paint but in his case there were special circumstances.  In 1947 he was given the opportunity by his friend M. Benedit, the executor of Rodin’s will to put the sculptor’s works in order after his death.  He worked on this classification for about ten years where it is likely that his intense admiration for Rodin began there and that he would have had plenty of time to learn the fairly simple technique Rodin used for his wash drawings and watercolors as well as his style.  Roche’s own works were deeply influenced by Rodin.  This is especially evident in the nude figures done by Roche.

In 1931 he went to live in Six-Fours just above Sanary where he painted the bulk of his works.  These works included coastal scenes which he painted from nature, traveling from beach to beach.  A truculent old man with a white beard, wearing eastern dress (a robe and turban), he did not go unnoticed.  The work of this extraordinary figure is pleasant rather then seminal and was only discovered in 1971, giving rise to an exhaustive search.  As an artist, he certainly deserved this attention all the more because he never dreamed of deriving glory or profit from his art.