Galerie Dumonteil hosts cocktail party and preview, “Splendor on the Riviera” by Camille Roche

Last week Wednesday, Galerie Dumonteil held a reception in honor or Camille Roche, a french artist identified early as a prodigy and was established in his own atelier with tutors and models at age fifteen. In his late teens Roche’s work was commissioned by the Parisian elite such as Coco Chanel, as well as collected by the Director of the Musée Rodin and the Musée du Luxembourg. These works now form part of the drawings collection of the Musée d’Art Modern.

In 1919 Roche received his first commissions from the Director de la Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres. This relationship was to last for eighteen years during which Roche exhibited in the 1925 and 1937 Expositions Internationales (World’s Fairs). Following the numerous critically-acclaimed works exhibited in the 1937 Fair, commissions came from, amongst others, Baron Robert de Rothschild and the Marquess of Cholmondeley for their homes on the Riviera. Much of Roche’s work remains in the Roche family and the collections of his patrons’ heirs. However, at their request, these works are now being exhibited around the world. Camille Roche in 1920 having been the first recipient of the Prix Blumenthal, in 1932 his work was exhibited for the 18th anniversary of the Florence Blumenthal Foundation at the Wildenstein Gallery in New York City. Due to family tragedies resulting from World War II this artist’s works have only been rediscovered and appreciated. Galerie Dumonteil is located at 475 Park Avenue, New York, NY.