Soulages, the ambassador
On 20 October 2010, Pierre Soulages laid the foundation stone of his Rodean museum, just a few steps from the house on rue Combarel where he was born in 1919. Designed by the Calatan architects RCR, the structure is intended to house the important donation made by Pierre Soulages and his wife, Colette, to the Greater Rodez agglomeration community. It consists of paintings on canvas and paper - including a major group of walnut shells; compositions that are rare in public collections - etchings, lithographs and serigraphs - all the artist's printed work - and preparatory cartoons for the stained glass windows of Conques.
Today, the Soulages museum, composed of successive parallelepipeds clad in dark red corten steel, is just as Pierre Soulages had imagined it. Not a mausoleum dedicated entirely to him, but rather an open institution, with a temporary exhibition hall with a national and international programme. Calder, Picasso, Le Corbusier, and more recently Geluck's Le Chat have all passed through this space of over 500m2
. It must be said that Pierre Soulages is the most famous contemporary artist in the world. This son of a craftsman is also present in many museums. Born in Rodez in 1919, he attended the workshops of craftsmen in his native street from an early age: saddler, carpenter, printer, cabinetmaker, blacksmith and showed an interest in his country and its characteristics: the landscapes of the Causses, the enigmatic statue-menhirs and the Romanesque churches among others. He tells us that it was in Conques, as a teenager, that he discovered his vocation for painting, to which he decided to devote himself entirely. After the war, Pierre Soulages, who was close to abstract expressionist artists such as Klein, Rothko, Newman or Pollock, obtained a first recognition as a non-figurative artist. But it was in 1979 that his uniformly black painting, his Outrenoir, brought him universal recognition.Rodez, the city with 3 museums
The museums of Greater Rodez are usually compared to a fleet, with the Soulages Museum as its flagship. With the Fenaille Museum, dedicated to local archaeology, and the Denys-Puech Museum, which houses the sculptor's donation and a section of contemporary art, it forms a complementary whole.
Toulouse-Lautrec and his family castle of Bosc
The Toulouse-Lautrec Museum in Albi holds the most important public collection in the world dedicated to the painter. Paintings, lithographs, drawings and posters reflect the different talents and facets of this artist who maintained strong links with the Aveyron. Born in Albi in 1864, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec grew up in Le Bosc, a family castle in Camjac, to which he would later return every summer. The second floor of the building houses many drawings and photos of the painter, whose memory is still very present in these places.
