Le Groupe de Roubaix

Creative hotbed in the north of France

Born in the immediate post-war period, the Groupe de Roubaix refers to a group of artists based or trained in the Roubaix region, who contributed to the emergence of a lively, free artistic scene deeply rooted in reality. Between 1946 and 1975, this informal but close-knit group brought together painters, sculptors and printmakers around shared values: respect for manual labour, commitment to the world, sincerity of gesture and a refusal of formalism.

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In a region marked by the textile industry, the Roubaix Group developed a rough, expressive and sometimes brutal aesthetic that echoed the working class condition. It was not a structured movement, nor a theorised current, but rather a community of sensibility, of artistic and human solidarity.

The figures of the Roubaix Group

Eugène Leroy: Working away from fashion, in the solitude of his Wasquehal studio, he has developed a powerful style of painting, somewhere between figurative and abstract, in which forms emerge slowly from thick layers of paint. Long ignored, he is now recognised as a great master of contemporary painting, and his work is exhibited in some of the world's leading institutions (Centre Pompidou, Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris). Although close to the Roubaix Group in terms of location, he has always followed a deeply personal and independent artistic path.

Eugène Dodeigne: also a sculptor, known for his work in stone, he developed a body of work that was both organic and spiritual, imbued with silence and strength.

Alfred Manessier, Arthur Van Hecke, Camille De Taeye and Jules Cavaillès are also among the artists who were close to the group or had an affinity with it.

Jean Roulland: a sculptor with a vigorous style, he modelled clay, bronze or wood to give life to powerful figures, often marked by pain, fatigue or human dignity.

What links them is not a common style, but a relationship with the land and a sincere artistic commitment: an art that is often figurative, turned towards the human, rooted in the material and the everyday.

Art with local roots and universal resonance

Far from the major centres of Paris, the Roubaix Group has developed outside the traditional circuits of contemporary art. This self-assumed marginality allowed for greater formal freedom and a particular attention to materials, texture and social reality. From the 1950s to the 1970s, exhibitions organised in Roubaix, Tourcoing, Lille and Brussels enabled these artists to make a name for themselves. However, their recognition was late in coming, and they remained discreet on a national scale, although several members of the group gained considerable renown from the 1990s onwards, thanks in particular to the rediscovery work carried out by the La Piscine museum in Roubaix.