BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
1944-1947
Studied commercial art at Michaelis Art School, University of Cape Town
1948
Married Afrikaans writer, Etienne le Roux
1958
Founder member of the Bloemfontein Group
1975-1980
Principal of private Art School for primary scholars
1979-1980
Lecturer at Ruth Prowse Art School
Founder committee member of Artist’s Guild
1981-1983
Artist in residence for Architectural firm, Revel Fox and Partners, Cape Town
Interior Display Artist for Ikapa Gallery, Cape Town
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1962
Roderick’s Gallery, Bloemfontein
Egon Guenther Gallery, Johannesburg
1963
South African Association of Arts, Cape Town
1974
National Museum, Bloemfontein
1975
Goodman-Wolman Gallery, Cape Town
1978
Goodman-Wolman Gallery, Cape Town
South African Association of Arts, Pretoria
National Museum, Bloemfontein
1982
South African Association of Arts, Cape Town
1985
South African Association of Arts, Cape Town
1989
Cadres D’Espirit, Cape Town
2006
UCT, Irma Stern Museum, Cape Town
2007
Retrospective Exhibition with Nel Erasmus, Sasol Art Museum, University of Stellenbosch
Retrospective Exhibition, Oliewenhuis Art Museum, Bloemfontein
NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1959
Bloemfontein Group, National Museum, Bloemfontein
Under 40’s Salon, South African Association of Arts, Cape Town
1961
Bloemfontein Group, Vorster’s Gallery, Pretoria
1962
Bloemfontein Group, Roderick’s Gallery, Bloemfontein
Kuns van Vandag, Johannesburg
1963
Sao Paulo Biennale
1964
South African Quadrennial, Pretoria
Bloemfontein Group, Gallery One, Bloemfontein
Art of Today, Rembrandt Art Centre, Johannesburg
1974
South African Artists, Goodman-Wolman Gallery, Cape Town
South African Artists, National Museum, Bloemfontein
1975
Festival Exhibition, Cape Town
1978
Bloemfontein Group, National Museum, Cape Town
1979
15 Cape Artists, Goodman-Wolman Gallery, Cape Town
Cape Biennale, National Museum, Bloemfontein
1980
Cape Artists, National Museum, Bloemfontein
1983
Artist’s Guild, South African Association of Arts, Cape Town
1988
Bloemfontein Group, Oliewenhuis Art Museum, Bloemfontein
International Miniature Exhibition, Toronto, Canada
Group Exhibition, RAU, Johannesburg
Group Exhibition, Strydom Gallery, George
1990
Four Studios, Cape Town and Pretoria
Abstraksie (verlede en hede)
1992
Cape Women Artists, Bloemfontein
1993
Group, South African Association of Arts, Bellville
1998
Seventy Plus, Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees, Oudtshoorn
Prime Time, AVA, Cape Town
1999
5 Cape Artists, South African Association of Arts, Pretoria
ABSA Gallery, Johannesburg
Dorp Street Gallery, Stellenbosch
2001
Dorp Street Gallery, Stellenbosch
2006
Rose Korber, Cape Town
WORK IN MAJOR COLLECTIONS AND PROMINENT BUILDINGS
Liebenberg & Stander
Gilbey's, Stellenbosch
Naspers
Cape of Good Hope Bank
Douglas Green Bellingham
SA National Gallery, Cape Town
Pretoria Art Museum
Durban Art Gallery
AC White Gallery, Bloemfontein
William Humphreys Gallery, Kimberly
Hester Rupert Gallery, Graaf Rienette
National Gallery, Bloemfontein
University Art Gallery, Potchefstroom
Medical Faculty, Bloemfontein
Netherlands Bank, Bloemfontein
Oranje Meisieskool, Bloemfontein
Journalism Faculty University of Stellenbosch
Pietersburg Municipal Gallery
Metropolitan Homes Trust
Oliewenhuis Art Gallery, Bloemfontein
SASOL Johannesburg
Swiss Re Life and Health, Claremont, Cape Town
Stellenbosch University Museum
Cape Grace Hotel, Waterfront, Cape Town |
 |


Artist: RENÉE LE ROUX
Title: Homage
Size: 100 x 100 cm
Media: Acrylic on canvas
Price on request
ESMÉ BERMAN, Art and Artists of South Africa, An Illustrated biographical dictionary and historical survey of painters, sculptors and graphic artists since 1875; 1983
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, 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.
ANDRÉ BRINK (Internationally renowned South African novelist) opening Renée Le Roux's exhibitions at Irma Stern and Oliewenhuis:
“…What I find particularly intriguing, interesting and enthralling about Renée’s exhibition, which is her twelfth solo exhibition, is that there is such a direct sense of challenge in every canvas that when one comes to it, it is not just a matter of looking at a number of colours splashed in a more or less random way on a surface. There is some very deep intellectual engagement, which is clamoured for from the painting.
...There is a real exhilaration in many of these paintings where one can share with the artist this joy of discovering in the process. But at the same time one can not be deeply aware of the intensity of the intellectual work, labour involved in the process. Each canvas is really carefully coached in a variety of directions not imposed from above. The painting is allowed to grow. There is a sort of eruption from the inside of the artist, an eruption from deeply buried recesses within the artist, erupting on the canvas and then expressing itself in dialogues and discussions among all the different elements, visible on the surface of the canvas.
...a painting on any of these walls does not readily let go of you. It forces you to come back, it forces you to engage in a dialogue to bring your intellectual ability to think, to probe, to understand the enjoyment. It is the sense of pleasure, it is the discovery of the unknown within the known, breaking open what the eye sees on the surface around one every single day in order to help us to see and discover new possibilities.”
AMANDA BOTHA (South African journalist and author of publications on ballet, art and literature) Extract from: Renée le Roux, Exponent of abstraction in South African Art (August 2007):
Renée le Roux is regarded as an esteemed exponent of abstraction in South African Art. Since the late 1950’s, together with the earliest pioneers such as Bettie Cilliers-Barnard, Chriso Coetzee, Paul du Toit and Nel Erasmus, she has been exploring a form language in which visual reality is abstracted into a new aesthetic. While abstraction as a visual at form was receiving prominent attention in Europe, and particularly in the United States of America during this time, South African artists were never part of the main stream focus of this art form.
Renée le Roux made two study visits to the USA – in 1977, and again in 1982. During her first visit to New York and Boston, she focused on the golden age of Abstract Expressionism and became acquainted with the works of the leading exponents of non-figurative art, such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and their followers. This was an exposure to the so called ‘new world’ that came into being after the Second World War. The underlying idea and content of the abstract work were explored here in the artwork’s two dimensional character and formal qualities such as free play of elements. The Colour-Field Painting technique, which arose from Pollock’s initial abstract expressionism that was later also denoted by descriptive names such as Post-Painterly Abstraction and gave rise to the development of Hard-Edged painting, resonated with le Roux – particularly in her admiration for the work of Helen Frankenthaler.
"I am consciously involved in preparing the canvas, but after that I allow my subconscious to take over. My emotions and expressions of inner feelings give form to the work. This mood dominates. Satisfaction is the certainty of knowing what we are doing, and of recognizing what the painting depicts. What is important then, is to know when to stop! This only happens for me if I have experienced an intellectual journey, an element of surprise, in which I can reflect a specific quality that I experience as authentic, and not merely an object of superficial decoration." – Renée le Roux |