Henri-Pierre Roché
Henri-Pierre Roché (28 May 1879 – 9 April 1959) was a French author who was involved with the artistic avant-garde in Paris and the Dada movement. Late in life, Roché published two novels. The first was Jules et Jim (1953), a semi-autobiographical work published when he was 74. His second novel, Deux Anglaises et le continent (Two English Girls, 1956), also was inspired by his life. Both were adapted as films by the director François Truffaut, in 1962 and 1971 respectively. The popularity of the film Jules and Jim brought renewed attention to Roché's novels and life.
Early life
Roché was born in Paris, France. In 1898, he was an art student at the Académie Julian.<ref>Lake, Carlton et al. (1991). Henri-Pierre Roché: an Introduction, p. 190.</ref>
Career
Roché became a journalist as well as an art collector and dealer. At the turn of the 20th century, he became close friends with young European artists in the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris, including Manuel Ortiz de Zárate and Marie Vassilieff; and from Montmartre, Max Jacob and Pablo Picasso. He was at home in the world of artists, collectors and gallerists. In November 1905, he introduced the Americans Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo to Picasso.
Leo Stein described Roché as "a tall man with an inquiring eye under an inquisitive forehead, wanted to know something more about everything. He was a born liaison officer, who knew everybody and wanted everybody to know everybody else."<ref>Stein, Leo. Appreciation. Lincoln: Nebraska Press, 1996, 169-70.</ref> Gertrude, in chapter 3 of her The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, described Roché in much the same terms. She particularly appreciated his having read her Three Lives and early recognition of her value as a writer.<ref>Stein, Gertrude. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. (1957/Penguin, reprint 2001), pp. 50-51</ref>
Roché was also a friend of Francis Picabia, Constantin Brâncuși and Marcel Duchamp. Following his discharge from the French army, Roché and Duchamp traveled to New York City in 1916. There, they worked with Beatrice Wood to create The Blind Man and Rongwrong, two magazines that were among the early manifestations in the United States of the Dada art movement.
Roché became the chief advisor to the American art collector John Quinn in 1917 and made many acquisitions for him from 1917 to 1924.
Known for his womanizing, Roché married twice, first to Germaine Bonnard (1927–1948; separated 1933), then to Denise Renard (1948–1959). He had no children with Bonnard. His only child, a son with Renard, Jean-Claude Roche, was born in 1931.
Later years and writing
In his later years, he wrote and published two successful novels. His first novel, Jules et Jim (1952), was published when he was 74. His second novel, also inspired by his life, was Deux Anglaises et le continent (Two English Girls, 1956). Both novels, although written by a man who was quite advanced in age, express a vitality and freshness not often seen in French romantic stories of the time.Template:Fact
The French film director François Truffaut came across a copy of Jules et Jim secondhand. He located Roché and befriended the writer in his final years. Roché died in 1959 in Sèvres, Hauts-de-Seine. Truffaut was so impressed by Roché's two novels that he adapted each of them as films. Truffaut's first adaptation, Jules and Jim (1962), was followed by the earliest English translation of the novel as a Panther paperback published in Great Britain in 1963. Truffaut's version of Deux Anglaises et le continent was released with the trivially different title Les Deux Anglaises et le continent in 1971 (Two English Girls or Anne and Muriel in anglophone markets). The opening credits of the second film roll over images of the novel's cover (Gallimard edition) and internal pages with Truffaut's annotations, in homage to Roché and emphasising the film's debt to its source.<ref>Anne Gillain, Tout Truffaut: vingt-trois films pour comprendre l'homme et le cinéaste (Paris: Amand Colin, 2019), ch. "Les Deux Anglaises et le continent (1971)".</ref>
Jules et Jim was inspired by the love triangle involving Roché, the German writer Franz Hessel (who translated Marcel Proust into German, as the character Jules does) and Helen Grund, who married Hessel.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
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Thierry Leclère, "Stéphane Hessel, un homme engagé : “J’ai toujours été du côté des dissidents”", Télérama, 5 June 2008, updated 12 March 2011). Retrieved 17 March 2017 Template:In lang
Ignacio Ramonet, "A Call to Outrage" Template:Webarchive, Other News 15 February 2011. Retrieved 17 March 2011</ref> It is not based on the triangle involving Roché, Beatrice Wood and Marcel Duchamp, as sometimes suggested in Wood's later years.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
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{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
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}}</ref> Roché did, however, allude to the Roché-Wood-Duchamp triangle in his unfinished novel, Victor.<ref>The unfinished text of Victor has been published in English as Three New York Dadas and The Blindman Template:Webarchive (London: Atlas Press, 2013). Retrieved 22 April 2023.</ref> Beatrice Wood herself saw little resemblance between Jules et Jim and her relationship with Roché and Duchamp, writing in her 1985 autobiography, ITemplate:NbspShock Myself:
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Notes
References
- Lake, Carlton and Linda Ashton. (1991). Henri-Pierre Roché: an Introduction, Austin, Texas: Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas. Template:ISBN; OCLC 24929441
External links
- Henri-Pierre Roché Papers at the Harry Ransom Center
- [https://www.imdb.com/{{#if: 0734132
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