“Robert left us a poisoned legacy,” says his son Éric Roussil today. The Quebec sculptor, who died in France in 2013, left behind him, in his studio in Tourrettes-sur-Loup, in Provence, hundreds of works on paper and some sculptures, which no one wants. For ten years, his family has been trying to find them a buyer, but has been refused several times. And yet, he was an extraordinary artist.
Roussil was considered by many to be one of the greatest Quebec sculptors of his time, a daring and avant-garde artist. Art historian Guy Robert thus wrote in 1965 that he had contributed to “the liberation of the spirit of Quebec”, like Pellan and Borduas.
The seizure in 1949 of Family, a three-meter-high wooden sculpture, by the Montreal police for gross indecency had marked the spirits. Now exhibited at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, this work is a symbol of the beginning of modern sculpture in Quebec.
Robert Roussil is a fighter who challenges the established order. Sensitive to the socialist ideal, the 22-year-old sculptor founded the Atelier de la Place des arts in Montreal in 1947 (nothing to do with the current Place des Arts). Its goal is to bring together rebel artists and workers. The painter and signatory of Global denial Marcelle Ferron joins him.
The Atelier de la Place des arts was closed by the police in 1954 for alleged subversive activities. Shortly after, in 1956, Roussil packed up and settled in France for the rest of his life.
Not having the means to live in Paris, Robert Roussil goes to Tourrettes-sur-Loup at the suggestion of Marcelle Ferron. Roussil met his second wife there, Danielle Moreau. The couple settled in two old abandoned olive mills, at the foot of the village. The site then looks like a public dump, but “it didn’t scare Robert”, says Danielle Moreau-Roussil, contacted at her home in Tourrettes. The mills will be his refuge, his place of creation, for 55 years.
Robert Roussil regularly returns to Quebec for exhibitions, which sometimes turn into scandal. In 1965, during the opening of the Retrospective Robert Roussil at the Museum of Contemporary Art, a fight breaks out when the director of the museum wants to ban the poster for the exhibition, showing the sex of a man, designed by Vittorio, poster designer and friend of Roussil. In 1978, the management of the Musée du Québec put an abrupt end to the exhibition Roussil, five years of work because the sculptor advocates the destruction of the current Ministry of Cultural Affairs, which he qualifies as “cultural trash”.
“He was very displeasing to the authorities,” says Danielle Moreau-Roussil.
A shunned legacy
Robert Roussil is known for his monumental sculptures. There are a dozen in Quebec, in public places in Montreal, Rivière-du-Loup and Joliette. The sculptor has always favored public art. “For him, galleries and museums were for an elite,” says Danielle Moreau-Roussil.
His sculpture park in Saint-Laurent-du-Var, France, is one of his most imposing achievements: 12 monumental sculptures on the roof of a wastewater treatment plant on the Côte d’Azur. “The most beautiful shit factory in France”, said Roussil. Abandoned for decades, the sculptures now risk falling under the pick of the wreckers, as was often the case in the past.
Upon his death, Robert Roussil left an impressive studio collection: hundreds of drawings and engravings, as well as a few sculptures stored in France and Quebec. But no one wants it, despite the efforts of the family.
They unsuccessfully approached art dealer Simon Blais, from the gallery of the same name in Montreal. “For a merchant to work well, he must like the work”, summarizes the latter. However, Roussil has never worked with galleries – “he hated the art market”, says his son Éric. “An artist who does not like the market is not liked by the market”, concludes the art dealer Blais.
The family submitted a request to save the studio fund to the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec: another refusal. The institution does not have the means nor the interest. With nearly 300 works by Roussil in the permanent collection, “we have everything we need,” says the museum’s curator of modern art, Anne-Marie Bouchard.
The Joliette Art Museum wants to acquire 10 drawings by Robert Roussil, but the process is complicated. It is difficult to assess the value of his works, as there are few traces of past transactions. His son Éric explains “that he did a lot of business cash, even with cities. Art critic Gilles Daigneault delivers the final blow: “No one has much esteem for Roussil outside of sculpture. »
No one has much esteem for Roussil outside of sculpture.
At 83, Danielle Moreau-Roussil is beginning to lose hope. “I hear Robert say, ‘Make a big fire and put it all in the middle.’ But hey, he was still a little derisive. »