René Roche was born in Vienne, France, in 1932. He followed an independent path as a self-taught artist and sculptor. In 1957 he built his first studio, and art dominated his life increasingly, despite having to work in local industry. He started exhibiting at the Salon des Artistes de Vienne in 1957, winning first prize at the 15th Salon in 1963, also having his first solo exhibition that year. Throughout his career he exhibited regularly, both group and solo exhibitions, and accepted many commissions for murals and sculptures, having a strong conviction that works of art were not just for museums and art galleries, but should be seen in public spaces. By 1970 he had abandoned figurative painting for geometric abstraction, becoming a full-time artist in 1973. René Roche remained honest to his vision throughout his career, his colourful geometric sculptures allowing him to realise in real space the relationship between colours that he had established in his paintings. Shape and colour were his greatest inspiration, saying “one of my dreams is to throw colour at the sky and make it stay there.”