Valerie ROGER
THE SCULPTOR JEAN-ANTOINE HOUDON (1741-1828) - MODERN AND POST-WAR ART / Methodology of the CATALOGUE RAISONNÉ

Jean-Antoine Houdon, Portrait of Jean-Charles-Pierre Lenoir, Louvre Museum, Paris (detail) – Photo © Valerie Roger

THE EXPERT

A specialist in sculpture and modern art, Valerie Roger is an art historian. For over thirty years, her work has developed around two major axes: Sculpture and Modern and Post-war Art.

Working between France and the United States, she joined the Wildenstein Institute. For about fifteen years, she was responsible for the Auguste Rodin archives, the Jean-Antoine Houdon Catalogue Raisonné, and the Sculpture department.

At the forefront of her research is the Catalogue Raisonné of the sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon, to which she dedicates a significant part of her scientific activity.

HER SPECIALTIES

Sculpture /

It was during a first university thesis dedicated to the links between Auguste Rodin and the anonymous sculptors of the Middle Ages — whom he considered his masters — that Valerie Roger began her approach to sculpture. This unprecedented subject forged from the outset a transchronological perspective, combining a journey through centuries with an in-depth study of techniques, processes, and materials.

Joining the Wildenstein Institute in 1991 to work on documentation and the Rodin Archives, she became head of the Archives and the Sculpture department. Daniel Wildenstein then entrusted her with the scientific responsibility, conception, and writing of the Catalogue Raisonné of Jean-Antoine Houdon.

Following many years of international research, analysis, and expertise, this considerable work resulted in the drafting of a scientific corpus of artwork entries, corresponding to approximately one thousand inventoried proofs. Based on an in-depth examination of the works, this extensive body of work firmly establishes Valerie Roger among the leading specialists of the great portraitist of the Age of Enlightenment.

After Daniel Wildenstein’s death and the suspension of the catalogue raisonné’s publication, Valerie Roger independently continues ongoing monitoring, updating, consulting, and expert work on Jean-Antoine Houdon’s oeuvre, an activity that has never ceased to this day.

Modern and Post-war Art /

A second university thesis (DEA, Paris X, 1992), titled The Sacred Art Controversy, broadened her field of research to Modern and Contemporary Art. This critical debate, which marked the early 1950s, revolved notably around Matisse’s Vence Chapel, Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp Church, and Germaine Richier’s Christ at Plateau d’Assy.

Her study of the figure of Father Marie-Alain Couturier, a central figure in post-war Sacred Art commissions and close to Dominique de Ménil (Menil Collection, Menil Foundation Houston), led Valerie Roger to deepen her research across the Atlantic, a work that allowed her to establish lasting ties with both the great collector and the American academic world.

In this context, she was subsequently sought after for her expertise in catalogue raisonné methodology and complex corpus management, notably by William Camfield (University of Houston), a specialist in Francis Picabia. She then became responsible for the methodology of the Francis Picabia Catalogue Raisonné for the Picabia Committee in Paris (2005–2009), and a research associate on the artist’s works for the post-war period.

Research, Consulting, and Expertise /

All these activities led to the creation of an independent structure dedicated to research, consulting, and expertise.
Nourished by in-depth study of major figures – Jean-Antoine Houdon, Auguste Rodin, Francis Picabia, and other great 20th-century artists – and by constant archiving and extensive documentation, Valerie Roger is committed to the history of modern thought and spirit.

She undertakes missions for research, identification, expertise and authentication, as well as for consulting on catalogue raisonné methodology and the writing of artwork entries, essays, and scientific texts.