A gift of 400 drawings puts French painter’s legacy on show
The late artist’s sons donated the works to the Musée des
Beaux-Arts Eugène Leroy in Tourcoing
By Ermanno Rivetti. Web only
Published online: 28 June 2012
Around 400 works on paper by the French painter Eugène
Leroy, who was admired by artists such as Georg Baselitz and Markus Lupertz but
worked in relative isolation for most of his career, are on show at the Musée
des Beaux-Arts, Tourcoing, which was renamed the Musée des Beaux-Arts Eugène
Leroy in honour of the artist’s centenary in 2010. The exhibition has been made
possible thanks to a donation from the artist’s two sons, Eugène Jean and
Jean-Jacques Leroy, who gave the drawings and sketchbooks containing around 400
works, which cover their father’s entire output from 1927 until his death in
2000, to the museum in 2009.
The exhibition, “Eugène Leroy: Le Dessin” (Eugène Leroy:
the Drawings), which is on show until 17 July, presents this collection of
crayon, charcoal, pastel and watercolour drawings. The two guest curators, the
British artist Orlando Mostyn-Owen and the Chilean artist Humberto
Poblete-Bustamante, are the co-founders of a loose collective of artists and
writers called the International Bongo-Bongo Brigade.
Leroy did not enjoy a meteoric rise to fame, but
Mostyn-Owen says: “Particularly in his earlier drawings, we can see Leroy
striving towards immortal status. They tell us that he knew what he wanted to
achieve.”
Leroy was born in Tourcoing
in 1910, and despite his prolific output he only found real, lasting
recognition after the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville in Paris Albright-Knox Art
Gallery , Buffalo
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