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Renault and art:
bold thinking to
inspire creativity

In 1967, Renault Group began building an art collection that now includes some 300 works by artists including Vasarely, Erró, Dubuffet and Tinguely, along with 200 historic photographs by Robert Doisneau, Robert Franck and Frank Riboud. A forward-thinking form of corporate philanthropy where contemporary artists are invited into the heart of the company and its factories in order to build bridges between the automotive industry and the world of art. Today, the Collection is taking a new direction by investing in street art: a popular art form whose home is on the street, like our vehicles, a space that authorises bold and creative thinking.

“Like street art, Renault Group is naturally present on the street.
As well as sharing a space, they share a number of values in that both are creative, popular, ingenious and ready for a challenge”

Catherine Gros

VP Philantropy & Heritage

The Art Collection:
building bridges between the art world and the automotive industry

Some 60 years ago, Renault launched an innovative project in corporate philanthropy entitled “Research, Art and Industry”. The idea was to invite artists into the production workshops, allowing them to explore new creative avenues, access technical advice and specialist equipment, and meet production workers. For Renault, it was also an opportunity for employees to access a world that is generally closed to them. The contact proved to be highly enriching and a stimulus for innovation at the very heart of the company.

Renault began collecting art in the 1930s, when photographer Robert Doisneau was a full-time employee. The collection reflects both its times and the history of the company. Made up of almost 500 works, the collection reflects the collaboration between Renault and a number of visionary contemporary artists who were already recognised in the 1960s, including Jean Dubuffet and Victor Vasarely, the Hungarian-born artist who redesigned the Renault logo in 1972. The collection also includes works by sculptors belonging to the New Realism movement, such as Arman and Jean Tinguely, and of course Erró, who took the historic Renault 5 as his model. Contemporary works are also present, with artists such as Jean-Luc Moulène, Heidi Wood and Angela Palmer.

Building a unique collection of street art, focused on the future

Today, Renault Group is beginning a new chapter in its artistic adventures with the Renault Endowment Fund for Art and Culture. The purpose of the fund is to protect the works already in the collection and to renew it with contemporary artists from the world of street art. This initiative reflects Renault's ambition to build bridges between art and industry, developing a cultural connection that is both popular and innovative.

The street art movement seeks to place art on the streets, where everybody can enjoy it. It is a natural echo with our business as an accessible carmaker. Our aim is to build up a unique collection that is a mirror image of the company: global but with special ties to France. The collection will consist of acquisitions, special commissions and initiatives to disseminate the artistic culture of street art.

The art collection:
a century of history

Renault has often commissioned works from artists during its history. Frequently ahead of their times, these creators adopted bold artistic practices that were not recognised by museums. Initiated a century ago, Renault’s Art Collection comprises several hundred works, including many large formats and ensembles. It is particularly representative of the following trends: “Humanist” photography, New Realism, Narrative Figuration, Op Art and Art Brut.

Robert Doisneau was employed full-time at the Renault factory in Billancourt between 1934 and 1939 as a “roving” photographer. Returning as a freelance photographer between 1945 and 1956, he left a unique record of life in the workshops on Ile Seguin in Boulogne Billancourt. His objective: “to show the texture of objects and the expressions on human faces”.

A founding member of the New Realism movement, Arman – painter, sculptor and visual artist – worked in the Renault factory in Billancourt in 1967, creating artistic works from industrial materials. He saw the workshops as a creative laboratory. Arman’s works include accumulations of automotive parts, such as Accumulation Renault No. 162 (1968), Accumulation d’Eléments Mécaniques (1969), and oils, such as Composition (1974).

Another New Realism artist was Jean Tinguely, who had a passion for all things mechanical. Teaming up with Renault was therefore a natural step that led to a prolific output.As he said: “My job is to provide a counterbalance to chaos”. This approach is illustrated by works including Bascule V (1967), Requiem pour une feuille morte (1967) and Meta pandemonium (1981).

Finnish artist Erró is known for his realist figurative art, mixing images from pop culture and the history of arts. In the 1980s, he sought to build bridges between the worlds of industry and art. In Caravaggio R5 (1986), for example, he used the historic Renault 5 as a model, illustrating its semantic dissociation. He also expressed the idea of accumulation in the work Motor scape (1984). Erró is one of the artists best represented in the Renault Art Collection: two watercolours, six canvases and 61 collages.

Hungarian-born painter and visual artist Victor Vasarely was the founder of Optical Art, a branch of geometric abstraction that produces an illusion of vibrance or movement. He worked closely with the paint laboratory at the Renault site in Billancourt. In 1972, he created the emblematic logo of the Renault brand, which is still directly referenced in the logo today. The works produced by Vasarely for the company include Gordium PS positif (1951), 166 Sirs-kek (1953) and Pokol (1973).

A French painter, sculptor, and visual artist, Jean Dubuffet was the first theorist of Art Brut. His spectacular and monumental works disrupt visual reference points and physical reflexes.

As early as 1973, he benefited from the technical and technological support of the Renault Group.

A significant episode in this collaboration was his use of the Delta 3D machine, designed for enlarging automobile models, which allowed him to scale his models up to human size. Discovering cutting-edge techniques and new materials in the workshops, such as polyester and polystyrene, marked an important step in his artistic journey.

Another example of collaboration is the astonishing work ‘Red Hot’ by sculptor-volumist Angela Palmer. Created in 2014, it reflects her fascination with the organic dimension of exhaust systems, whose orange-red colour evokes the rapid temperature rise of the pipes under full load in a Formula 1 engine.