1944 – 47 : Commercial Art at Michaelis School, UCT.

Brief Biography

Former wife of noted Afrikaans writer Etienne Le Roux. 1956: Began painting for her own pleasure. 1958: founder-member of Bloemfontein Group. 1958 – 64: painted actively, ceased to paint professionally; no one-man show for seven years. 1970: resumed exhibiting; moved to Llandudno, Cape Peninsula. 1975: commissioned mural for Liebenberg & Stander office building, Cape Town. 1977: study visit to New York, opened an art school for children at Llandudno. 1980: founder-committee member Artists’ Guild. 1981: as ‘Artist in Residence’ with the Cape Town architectural firm of Revel Fox, involved in decoration of vast Nasionale Pers Centre, Cape Town.

Exhibitions

1959 – 64: Bloemfontein Group exhibitions.
1962: first one-man exhibition, Bloemfontein.
1963: Sao Paulo Bien.
1964: Third Quad of SA Art.
1966: Rep Fest Exhibition.
1970: one-man exhibition, National Museum, Bloemfontein.

Public Collections

SA National Gallery, Cape Town
Pretoria Art Museum
Durban Art Gallery
AC White Gallery, Bloemfontein
William Humphreys Gallery, Kimberly
Hester Rupert Gallery, Germany

From her earliest painting days Renée Le Roux displayed tendencies toward the abstract style. Her artistic viewpoint found affinity with that of the other young artists of the Bloemfontein Group, although her approach was independent. Original members of the Bloemfontein Group included Alexander Podlashuc, Marianne Podlashuc, Frans Claerhout, Eben van der Merwe and Rosemary Buler). A particularly personal aspect of Renée’s work was her original handling of the medium of monotype. These were usually very small pictures, non-figurative and tachiste in style, and pleasantly decorative of form. Her palette was unusual, incorporating combinations of blues and greens and purples – rarely did she make use of bright or warm colours in the compositions exhibited before 1966.

The canvases of the early Seventies were subtly different from those exhibited during the previous decade. Although still totally non-referential, these paintings were less concerned with field and more with form. Freely flowing lines recalled the earlier dribbled effects, but they were used more often now to accent and to define bold circular shapes – ‘nuclei’ which asserted themselves in striking hues against the sombre, textured field.

The gesture is the core of Renée Le Roux’s artistic procedure and although she modified her style again in later works (mainly ink on paper), in essence all her compositions are variations on a central theme, in terms of which each painting is a gestural imprint of human energy and will.

Source: Esmé Berman, Art and Artists of South Africa, An Illustrated biographical dictionary and historical survey of painters, sculptors and graphic artists since 1875; 1983 (260:261)