Kaléidoscope

​

More than forty years of artistic endeavour. Almost seventy exhibitions in galleries, museums, official and private venues. In addition, from 1970, Vincent Roux exhibited permanently at home in Saint Tropez. The hanging changed theme each year in Spring and often in Autumn. Some themes remained constant: female portraits, flowers, pageants, regattas, paintings of Venice, Orientalist variations etc.. In addition to oils on canvas (or on cork), watercolours and drawings, he also tried his hand at related disciplines, such as fresco in 'The Transfiguration of the Montagne Sainte Victoire' in the Hôtel de Gaillard d'Agoult, Aix en Provence in 1987. Similar compositions include the vast panoramas in oil that hang in the primary school of Saint Tropez ('Pageant in the Port', 1971) and the Café Sénéquier ('The Port of Saint Tropez', 1989).

 

 

From 1979, the artist executed several tapestry commissions for the Aubusson firm. The theme of the first series was 'Flowers of Vincent Roux'. Among the first prizes won at the Ecole des beaux-arts of Marseilles were one for interior decoration and one for theatre design. In 1968, Vincent designed the stage sets and the costumes for the 'Barber of Seville' for the Marseilles Opera (with in particular the soprano Mady Mesplé). Side by side with these achievements, he also designed visual delights with sometimes extravagant outfits he created for friends or for himself to be worn during the fancy dress parties that he held at at his successive homes (see 'Sior Maschera' below). ). In the same way that the artist offered certain of his works for sale on behalf of good causes (the preservation of Versailles, Venice etc.), he also designed a number of posters, for his own exhibitions of course, but also for artistic endeavours that he wished to support (the Saint Tropez Festival for amateur film-makers, antique fairs of Aix or Saint Tropez etc.).

 

 

His enthusiasm for sport, especially boxing brought about his design of the poster for Gratien Tonna's Marseilles come-back of 1984. Steeped in art history, Vincent Roux was also a supreme 'pasticheur', as several exhibitions "in the manner of......" demonstrate. The masterpieces of the Musée de l'Annociade of Saint Tropez were "pastiched" in 1973, as were those of the Jeu de Paume in Paris in 1974.

 

 

Later, additions to the oeuvre of Matisse' as well as to that of de Segonzac featured in his 1985 exhibition "Impressions of Autumn on the montagne Sainte Victoire". He was not yet twenty when he won, in 1948, the Prix du Conseil général des Bouches-du-Rhône. In 1960, the silver medal of the Ville de Paris was awarded to him, and he would win the Vermillion medal of the capital in 1985. In 1981, he was made a member of the Académie of Marseilles and in 1984, the town of Aix-en-Provence awarded him its Cézanne medal. In 1986, the minister of Culture himself conferred the Legion d'honneur upon the artist in his Palais Royal office. Among his admirers were the mayors of his two home towns, Aix en Provence and Saint Tropez. Collectors the world over own one or more Vincent Roux works, and the catalogue raisonné that we are preparing will attempt to locate as many works as possible. But there are also in France paintings by the artist in state collections and many local government collections: for example, purchases by Marseilles in 1960, Paris in 1963, Aix-en-Provence in 1986 etc. What a wonderful thing it would be if these works came out of the storerooms.......!