Born in Glasgow to a French father and Scottish mother, Roche, studied at Glasgow School of Art before moving to the Atelier Julian in Paris. Befriending John Lavery and William Kennedy, he joined them at Grez- sur- Loing. The significance of Early Autumn, Grez with a glimpse of the bridge in the distance lies in its spontaneity and freedom of brushwork which owes more to the Impressionists such as Monet and Pissarro than to the precision of Bastien-Lepage. Knowledge of Impressionism was rare for the Glasgow School. Roche, who was bi-lingual, had greater access to the wider artistic scene in France than Lavery, who later admitted ignorance of the Impressionists due to his lack of French.

Alexander Ignatius Roche RSA, 1861-1921

Roche's father was of French origin, but he himself was born and raised in Glasgow. He attended some art classes at the Glasgow School of Art while working in an architect's office, and it was at the school that he first met and became friends with John Lavery. In the early 1880s he studied in Paris, in both the lively studios of the Académie Julian and the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts under Gérôme. However, the tuition he received was to have little impact on his style after he returned to Scotland in 1855. 

Along with Lavery and the Glasgow Boy William Kennedy, Roche was one of a number of Scottish art students living in Paris at that time. These three, like several of their contemporaries, painted at Grez-sur-Loing, which had recently become an international artists; colony much frequented by Britons and Americans. They worked directly from nature, in emulation of the Paris-based artists who had panted at nearby Barbizon fifty years earlier. 

Roche's early work was influenced by both the Barbizon School and nineteenth-century Dutch painting, but later his style changed as a result of his attendance at W.Y. MacGregor’s life classes in Glasgow and exposure to the works of Whistler. 

After returning to Glasgow, Roche moved to Dunbartonshire before settling in Edinburgh in 1896. In 1893 he visited Madrid to study the art of Velazquez. On his return to Scotland he concentrated on portraiture, becoming an accomplished portrait painter and in later years receiving several commissions in America.