Frédéric Rouge

(1867 - 1950)

Expositions

F11 = plein écran
 
Accueil
Biographie
Anecdotes
Peintures
Dessins
Affiches
Cartes
Diplômes
Etiquettes
Etudes
Vitraux
Catalogue
Boutique
Contact
Revue historique du Mandement de Bex N° 32 (1999) Revue historique du Mandement de Bex N° 32 supplément (1999) Passé Simple déc. 2017 - Article de Ph. Kaenel (150 ans F. Rouge) Revue historique vaudoise 2018: Lavaux, F. Rouge face à R. Auberjonois (par Ph. Kaenel)
1924 (Musée Arlaud) - 1967 à Ollon - 1981 à Bex - 1985 à Epalinges - 1998 aux Diablerets - Aigle 2010- 2011 - 2012 - 2013 - 2014 - 2015
Le catalogue de l'exposition - Articles de presse - English - About the Centenary Exhibition - Deutsch

Frederic Rouge ( 1867 - 1950 )

Alphonse Mex, a local writer, knew Frederic Rouge well. In the following text he describes the artist's life and very likable personality.

Frederic Rouge was born in Aigle, on 27 April 1867. His parents owned a small shoe factory. He attended Aigle secondary school and several of his school fellows, such as Jules Amiguet, Gustave Doret and Samuel Cornut, also went on to make a name for themselves. As a child, Frederic Rouge, who was to become the best-known figurative painter of the Vaudois Alps, already showed remarkable promise in drawing - a talent, he said, inherited from his mother.

Art School
After school, he attended the Fine Arts College in Basel for a year, coming first of his class at the end of the course. Then, after a while studying in Solothurn under Vigier, a history painter, he came back home to live with his parents, who had by then handed their business over to their other son, François. Their father set Frederic up in a studio in a gallery behind the dairy in the Rue du Collège. To perfect his technique, the artist spent three consecutive winters at the Julian Academy in Paris "where Professor Boulanger, exacting and irascible, was hard to please". "By that time, the painter Eugène Burnand was already wellknown and exhibiting in Paris, while Frederic Rouge and Samuel Cornut were freezing in a garret."

The Laurels of Success
Frederic Rouge, a scrupulous, conscientious artist, somewhat resented the fact that he received so little recognition whilst some avant-garde artists were more successful, more fashionable. Luckily he could rely on many devoted admirers and friends. On March 5th, 1942 he had the immense satisfaction of being presented - at the same time as the composer, Gustave Doret - with the honorary citizenship of Aigle, his home town.

Ollon, a Favourite Spot
In 1903, Frederic Rouge settled in Ollon, not far from Aigle, in a pleasant house called "The Cedars". Today Ollon is still a large village surrounded by orchards and vineyards bathed in sunshine, its dense forests teeming with wildlife, and where the Alpine scenery reigns supreme - indeed ideal for someone like Rouge. He wholeheartedly loved this region which provided him with so many subjects of inspiration, and whose every season, scene and mood he rendered so faithfully.
Frederic Rouge was suffering from paralysis when he died on 13 February 1950. All his life he had remained unassuming, an honest man and a great artist, true to his ideals, a citizen devoted to the cause of liberty - perhaps not the best way to make one's fortune, even for a painter of talent !


* * * * *