House of Roulx is a company that embodies the word "eclectic." The visual arts purveyor sells photographs – and even the occasional painting – of iconic musicians, politicos, movie stars, Harry Houdini's family, and even elaborately dressed Victorian pets.
The company was formed by brothers Trevor and Jared Gendron. Jared already had a long-running autograph and collectibles business, JG Autographs, Inc. Trevor was working as an art director at Get On Down, a company that deals in beautifully crafted, creative reissues of hip-hop albums.
The Gendrons' joint vision of a company that sells high-quality, lovingly selected visual art has come to fruition, and I called Trevor to find out all about it. Our conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
Forbes: First off, how do you pronounce the name of the company?
Trevor Gendron: It's “roo,” like a kangaroo. But it is spelled r-o-u-l-x. It’s our mother’s maiden name.
F: What were you doing before this started?
TG: I was an art director at Traffic Entertainment Group, in Boston. They also do Get On Down, a music distributor. All the initial projects from Get On Down, I art directed and was lead designer on almost everything. So the GZA chess box was mine, the Ol’ Dirty Bastard wallet, the Raekwon purple tape that came in the box, all the Cold Chillin’ stuff, all the Delicious Vinyl reissues, that was all me.
F: What made you decide to transition into House of Roulx, which is primarily a photography company?
TG: We like to think of it as a visual arts company, more than just photography. It was something that I had always wanted to do, and I was starting to get burned out on the music scene. I had a really nice tenure with Traffic and Get On Down – I did pretty much everything that I could have wanted to have in a portfolio as far as independent music. I wanted a new challenge. I was getting a little bit older and wanted to branch out.
I’ve always been very, very much into the fine art world and the photography world, in addition to music. I just took some of the connections I had in the music world and applied how I approached package design and art direction.
I came and joined my brother, who has been doing an autographing/collectables business for about 15 years full-time. House of Roulx is an offshoot of that.
F: How do you determine what series you sell and who you work with?
TG: I reach out to artists that I like or have a previous relationship with. We offer a huge archive of work by George DuBose, who is an iconic music photographer from the 80s/early 90s. He’s done everybody from Madonna to Run-DMC. But his main credit, and how I got to know him years ago, was he was the art director and photographer for Cold Chillin’ Records. So he did all of those cool Biz Markie covers with Biz dressed up as the mad scientist; the Big Daddy Kane cover with him as black Caesar; Roxanne Shante, all that stuff. I had worked with George directly when Get On Down was doing the Cold Chillin’ reissues. We always had a good rapport, and he really likes me. He likes the work that I did with his stuff, and he trusts me.
So that’s one way, an established contact that I already have. Or if there’s somebody I really like and admire, usually it’s just a matter of seeing if they’re interested.
F: What about the more historical and offbeat stuff, where you’re not dealing with the people who actually took the photos – stuff like the 19th century animal photos or Harry Houdini’s pictures?
TG: That’s a little bit of personal taste as well. The Harry Houdini collection is stuff that we bought that included the rights. Those came from his estate, from his personal collection. They’re original glass negatives of family members – what people consider vernacular photography now, but it just happens to be of Harry Houdini’s family.
We just thought that they were cool. You don’t always get the opportunity to actually own the physical, original negatives and also the rights to repurpose or reproduce them.
And the dogs – excuse the pun, but it’s kind of like a pet project. We’re a big animal family, so we just like them.
F: Going back to George DuBose for a second, he has taken so many disparate photos. There’s a whole hip-hop archive, a whole punk archive, there’s unclassifiable stuff. How do you market the work of someone like that? Is it to fans of the different artists, or people who know his photos?
TG: It’s a little bit of both. Somebody like him is so eclectic. We try to work with artists that are eclectic and that have a vast and diverse portfolio, or have the ability to do multiple things.
With marketing him, there’s a few different worlds. There’s the really high-end, collectible photography world, which is very pricey. There’s the fact that these are iconic, historic music documents. And then there’s the casual fan that thinks a picture of Biggie on a street corner with an Uzi is just cool.
So we’re trying to hit every demographic we can. We’re not trying to alienate the casual rap fan, and we’re not trying to alienate the serious photography people either. That’s why we pay such attention to detail and craftsmanship. The papers, the stocks that we use, the way we print things, everything has to be as premium as possible.
F: How did you get your hands on the photos of Janis Joplin’s final performance?
TG: That’s a really cool story. My brother had been dealing with a gentleman named Kevin in the South End of Boston who had an autograph collection. His partner Peter Warrack had passed away, and Kevin had inherited this collection. He got in touch with us about four years ago, and we purchased all the autograph and collectible parts. He said, I have this photo archive as well.
Peter was a novice photographer, but he ran in all the hip circles in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. He was really into the theater scene, going to movie premieres. He befriended a lot of people. We passed on the photos at the time, because it wasn't really our thing – this was before the House of Roulx.
A couple years pass, and Kevin calls because he found some more autographs. He said, “I still have that photo collection. Do you want it?” We said, "Yeah, we might want that. How many photos do you think it is?" And he says, "I think it’s probably about 15,000." It blew our mind. He said, "I have all the negatives. I just want to get rid of them because I’m trying to downsize."
We went in and we took a look at some stuff. And it was at least that many – everybody from Jack Nicholson to Betty White to Cher to Jackie Kennedy to Robert Redford, in cool locations in Boston, New York, and London.
We went through it. It wasn’t anything too mind blowing, but we were into it. So we said, "Do you have any more music stuff?" He said, “I think we have Janis Joplin.” So he goes and he finds this 11”x14” image of Janis Joplin, a closeup from a live performance. Then he finds a whole contact sheet. That actually ended up being her final performance, because she died about six weeks later. That was at Harvard Stadium, and they were in the front row. Peter took a roll of film. There are only two other people we’ve been able to find who have images from that show. So the 24 images we have are, for all intents and purposes, the final 24 images taken of her before she died.
F: You had a painting made of one of them. What’s the story behind that?
TG: We offered the photos as prints, and then we decided we wanted to do larger-format prints – 12”x18”, 20”x30”. So my brother and I were thinking, could we do this as a book? We developed the box set idea, to do 8”x10”s, and to have Kevin, who is the partner, do a testimonial story, because it’s such a cool story. We’d been in touch with Jace McTier, an artist from Georgia. We’d been trying to work with him on and off for about a year, but we never had the right project. He does this very explosive, LeRoy Neiman-influenced style. He’s known for his sports paintings, but he also does music stuff.
We had the box all laid out, everything was done. I’m getting these handmade boxes, with covers and embossed logos. I’m looking at it like, this is so stark. Everything is black and white. The paper, the ink, the testimonials. There’s got to be something. So we’re like, maybe we should add a unique contemporary piece to this. It would be for Jace. His style is so vibrant, so explosive that it was a perfect way to invigorate the entire box with this huge splash of color.
We commissioned him to do an 8”x10” that is available as a one-of-one artist’s edition. But the standard edition box comes with a print of it as well.
He actually just finished a giant 24”x36”. It’s a secondary street corner pose, more of an action shot than a close up.
F: What is your personal favorite out of all the stuff you offer?
TG: I like everything we do. We’re not going to do something if I don’t like it just because I think it could be a good financial option. I want to be able to stand behind everything.
I really like having George’s stuff because we've had a good relationship over the years. He’s been a mentor and somebody that I’ve looked up to. I grew up on those record covers he shot. Working with George DuBose means a lot to me.
But I also like working with the younger kids, too. This guy Mr. Werewolf from Poland, we’re helping him break outside of Europe. He hasn’t really had too much exposure. So that’s really exciting, to be able to work with a brand new artist and help break them to general public.
