1

Essay by Déborah Couette and Céline Delavaux... 3

Diagram of Research and Investigations................ 25

Diagram of Networks .......................................... 26

Biographies of Selected Artists ............................. 27

Art Brut Timeline.................................................. 32

Exhibition Lists..................................................... 34

Notes ................................................................. 35

2 Ingredients
 LE FOYER DE L’ART BRUT
AN UNDERGROUND KITCHEN FOR UNPROCESSED ART

What interests me is not cake, it’s bread.

Jean Dubuffet, 1947

In October 1947, the prestigious Galerie René Drouin on Place

Vendôme hosted an exhibition of portraits by a certain Monsieur
Jean Dubuffet, peintre. One month later, a curious installation of
anonymous lava and basalt sculptures heralded the opening of Le
Foyer de l’Art Brut in the basement of the very same gallery. To all
outward appearances, these two events were unrelated. In reality,
a web of invisible threads tied them together, not least of all the
personality of their maker, Jean Dubuffet.

In the early 1940s, Dubuffet had ended a lucrative career as a wine

merchant to devote himself entirely to art. He had become fasci-
nated by what he described as art brut. The artist sought to prove
that art existed beyond the confines of museums and galleries, and
outside the scope of art’s academies and history. He claimed that
this form of production contains, like raw fruit, the special vitamins
which nourish and enrich us. These were the supplements, he be-
lieved, which only existed in raw art, uncontaminated by culture.

Dubuffet set off to find his ingredients. His journey began with tribal
art, the popular arts, with children’s drawings and so-called art of
the insane. There were also drawings and paintings by mediums.
His was not the first fascination with such material. The search for
an artistic otherness had already inspired the early 20th century’s
Jean Dubuffet avant-garde. Yet their attempts at regeneration had been fictional.
Portrait de Michel Tapié The quest for art brut allowed Dubuffet to start the process anew,
1946 sidestep the mainstream and fortify his own personal practice.
(courtesy of Galerie 1900-2000, Paris)

Essay 3
 For this new recipe, Dubuffet needed allies. He recruited them from
the artistic and literary vanguard, many of whose portraits he had
painted for his 1947 show. The network revolved around the writer,
Jean Paulhan, an influential publisher who worked at Gallimard and
had helped Dubuffet find his dealer, René Drouin. It was Drouin
who gave art brut its first headquarters, down in the basement
of his gallery; and it was here, in November 1947, that Dubuffet
assembled the objects and documents which he had collected over
the previous years.

II

The recesses of Le Foyer de l’Art Brut revealed the intensity of

Dubuffet’s investigations. Carried out contemporaneously with his
own artistic output, this impressive research had unearthed much in
the private gardens of writers, artists, art dealers and psychiatrists.

Charles Ratton, a dealer in what was then labelled as primitive art,

introduced Dubuffet to a group of bearded figurines which had
been carved from milestones by an anonymous hand. Originally
collected by Joseph-Oscar Müller, these funny little statues were
nicknamed Les Barbus Müller. They would go on to form the first ex-
hibition at Le Foyer de l’Art Brut. The poet and artist Henri Michaux
then helped Dubuffet acquire children’s drawings directly from their
teachers. Marionnettes de la ville et de la campagne, presented at
Drouin in 1944 by the critic Michel Tapié, was Dubuffet’s inaugu-
ral homage to their awkward inventiveness. In response, Drouin’s
gallery was inundated with hate mail.

In his earliest texts, published by Gaston Gallimard in 1946,

Les Barbus Müller
Dubuffet proclaimed a taste for the popular, the ordinary and the untitled
commonplace. Unsurprisingly, he sharpened his eye on graffiti and c 1930-40

4 Essay 5
 tattoos, as had the photographers Brassaï and Robert Doisneau
before him, and on artworks made by prison inmates, upon the ad-
vice of the eminent anthropologist and visitor to the foyer, Claude
Lévi-Strauss.

With Anatole Jakovsky, a critic and collector of naïve art, Dubuffet

went in search of artwork by les fous. It was thanks to the poet Paul
Eluard, who had taken refuge in the Saint-Alban Hospital during the
war, that Dubuffet discovered the astonishing toy-maker Auguste
Forestier. Sectioned for derailing a passenger train, Forestier was
now being collected by the likes of Pablo Picasso. Indeed, interest in
what might be called asylum art was nothing new. In 1924 Dubuffet
had found a copy of Bildnerei der Geistkranken by the psychiatrist
and art historian Dr Hans Prinzhorn: an extraordinary album of hos-
pitalised art-making, which the artist Max Ernst circulated amongst
his fellow Surrealists.

In July 1945, Dubuffet embarked on a voyage to Switzerland with

his friend Paulhan and the modernist pioneer, Le Corbusier. The trip
was to become legend in the annals of art brut. He marvelled at
the finger paintings of the architect’s cousin, Louis Soutter, which
had been reproduced in the Surrealist journal Minotaure in 1936.
He met Eugène Pittard, the director of the Ethnographic Museum
in Geneva, who introduced him to the watercolours of Congolese
painter Albert Lubaki, exhibited in Paris as early as 1929. There
were also drawings by mediumistic artist Hélène Smith, who had
explored Hinduism and the planet Mars under the guidance of the
writer Victor Hugo.

Dubuffet visited a number of Swiss psychiatric collections, notably

Auguste Forestier
untitled that of Dr Charles Ladame, which would later be exhibited at Le
date unknown Foyer de l’Art Brut. Yet it was Adolf Wölfli, the patient recognised

6 Essay 7
 as an artist by Dr Walter Morgenthaler in Ein Geisteskranken als
Künstler in 1921, who was to become the leading light of art brut.
His monumental autobiography was illustrated with detailed pencil
drawings, some up to two metres in size, and contextualised by
impossible stories of intra- and extra-terrestrial conquest. Back
in France, Dubuffet met with Dr Gaston Ferdière, the celebrated
psychiatrist of the poet Antonin Artaud. Ferdière showed him the
pharmaceutical watercolours of Guillaume Pujolle and the hallucina-
tory figurations of Marguerite Burnat-Provins.

These productions delighted Dubuffet, for they corresponded with

his subversive ideas on art. His plan was now to disseminate his re-
search and he signed a contract with his editor, Gaston Gallimard,
for a series entitled Les Cahiers de l’Art Brut. In 1947 Gallimard
would renege on his agreement. It was the first in a long series of
disappointments.

III

Dubuffet turned to his gallerist, René Drouin. His proposal, Le Foyer

de l’Art Brut, would be a response to the failure of Les Cahiers de
l’Art Brut. Dubuffet was all too aware that he needed support. The
foyer would be his refuge, a hideaway where his discoveries and
ideas about art brut could be presented and preserved.

In French, the word foyer implies a hearth, a source of energy.

Dubuffet may have hoped that the heatwaves generated by art brut
would permeate the ground floor and warm its prestigious visitors.
In the years after the war, Galerie René Drouin had gained a repu-
tation as a centre for cutting-edge culture. Drouin had premiered the
Adolf Wölfli
pioneers of abstraction, Wassily Kandinsky and Robert and Sonia untitled
Delaunay, and curated exhibitions of l’art informel, a collective c 1920

8 Essay 9
 Augustin Lesage Miguel Hernandez
Composition Symbolique untitled
c 1932 1947

10 11
 term coined by Michel Tapié for the work of Jean Fautrier, Wols and
Jean Dubuffet.

Tapié would go on to become a central character in the history of art

brut. From the outset, this art critic and jazz man was drawn to the
then-scandalous paintings of Jean Dubuffet. His features were immor-
talised in Dubuffet’s portrait gallery. He was not only a writer, but a
musician, a fact which certainly did not displease the artist, having
just completed his painting, Jazz Band. Moreover, this distant cousin
of the painter Toulouse-Lautrec was just as interested in self-taught
production as Dubuffet.

It was Tapié who had discovered the cement medallions and carica-
tures of Henri Salingardes, an innkeeper and antiques dealer in the
South of France. It was also Tapié who had brought to light the wood-
carved tools of a 70-year old poacher and itinerant called Xavier Par-
guey. Together, the pair visited an exhibition of tableaux merveilleux
by the healer and painter Fleury-Joseph Crépin, who then introduced
Dubuffet to his associate Augustin Lesage, the medium whose per-
formative spirit-paintings had published in Minotaure in 1933.

On the 17th November 1947, two days after the inauguration of Le

Foyer de l’Art Brut, Dubuffet handed the keys to Tapié, gave him a list
of proposed exhibits, among them Dr Ladame’s collection, and went
off to the Algerian Sahara in search of a different kind of exoticism.

IV

Tapié took his new role as director seriously. With the backing of
Drouin, he oversaw a series of publications which accompanied his
Pascal Désir Maisonneuve
untitled (Ubu Roi) temporary displays.
1925

12 Essay 13
 Miguel Hernandez was a Spanish war veteran living in Montmartre,
whose paintings harked back to his colourful past. Jan Krizek was a
Czech émigré and trained artist, whose simple stone sculptures were
introduced to Tapié by the cubist, Honorio Condoy. Pierre Giraud,
nicknamed l’enchanteur Limousin, was a draughtsman and fabrica-
tor, whose poet brother was Tapié’s assistant and had introduced
Dubuffet to tattoos. Yet Le Foyer de l’Art Brut seemed different. It
had become a rendez-vous, where artworks could be bought and
sold. That seemed a long way from Dubuffet’s original conceit.

Upon his return, Dubuffet criticised Tapié’s slapdash performance.

He accused him of being trop brouillon et trop fou, of exposing
works which were neither inventive nor counter-cultural enough
to conform to art brut. Worst of all, Tapié had been duped. Rob-
ert Véreux was the invention of Dr Robert Forestier, a physician,
collector and amateur painter, who had submitted a series of naive
dreamscapes pretending to be the work of an art brut artist.

The creator of art brut took back the reins. Dubuffet’s formative
displays included treasures from the collection: the delicate pastel
romances of Aloïse Corbaz, the embroideries of hospitalised medi-
um Jeanne Tripier and the influential imaginings of Heinrich Anton
Müller.

Yet Dubuffet also exhibited an art brut hoax. Les Statues de silex de
M Juva was an ensemble of pre-historic flintstone artefacts - includ-
ing tools, arrows, and the faces of people and animals - from a
pseudo-sanctuary in the suburbs of Paris. Juva was actually Antonin
Alfred Juritzky, a former Austrian prince, who had developed his
passion for early human history into a formal Neolithic fantasy. Ju-
Fleury-Joseph Crépin
va’s anthromorphic stones had duped the scientific community of the untitled (No 58, Architecture)
time and had even caught the attention of André Breton, the pope 1940

14 Essay 15
 Aloïse Corbaz Louis Soutter
Loge à Pie XI Madone Van der Veyden
date unknown date unknown

16 17
 of Surrealism. But Dubuffet was not fooled. For him, Juva was yet
another way for him to attack art history at its roots, and to reveal
how art history was constructed of arbitrary fictions.

If Dubuffet ever doubted that he could break bread with Breton,

he was convinced after they met in 1948. Breton had long been
fascinated by alternative formats. Dubuffet needed a formidable
ally. His basement installation was not shining as brightly as he had
imagined. Visitors should have been struck by an evidentiary bolt
of lightning. The raw production, exemplary creativity and unedited
invention was meant to reveal the impotence of l’art culturel - the
official art which had been heated and re-heated until it was devoid
of nutritional value. In other words, people should have been experi-
encing a revelation. Instead, Le Foyer de l’Art Brut was perceived as
an oddity: a mildly amusing space, with the feel of a flea market, but
not a venue for a radical new discourse on art.

With Breton as his partner-in-crime, Dubuffet returned to his earliest

construct: to publish a definitive study of art brut. In the spirit of the
pre-war artists of Der Blaue Reiter, the pair conspired to edit an al-
manac for which Breton wrote his famous 1948 essay: L’art des fous,
la clé des champs. The project would also contain reference to some
of Breton’s favoured authors, like the revered Haitian feather-painter,
Hector Hyppolite, and Adalbert Trillhaase, the not-so-naïve German
artist feted by Otto Dix.

Yet L’Almanach de l’Art Brut was not their only ambitious project
together. It was the first in a series of activities proposed through a
Juva
untitled new organisation: La Compagnie de l’Art Brut. Founder members
c 1940 included Jean Paulhan, Michel Tapié, Charles Ratton, and the writer

18 Essay 19
 and art dealer, Henri-Pierre Roché. Dubuffet believed this team would
maintain a position for art brut which was undiluted, uncompromised
and strictly non-commercial. A legal structure seemed appropriate for
a collection which had grown so exponentially. For example, through
Breton and the artist André Lhote, Dubuffet had acquired some shell-
masks by satirist and brocanteur, Pascal-Désir Maisonneuve. They, and
all the other works, needed to be protected.

A new organisation demanded a new command centre. Le Foyer

de l’Art Brut decamped from its underground home at Galerie René
Drouin for an equally high-profile location: a pavilion loaned by Gas-
ton Gallimard and located next to la Pléiade. From September 1948
to June 1949, Dubuffet entrusted the day-to-day running not to a critic,
but to an artist. Slavko Kopač was a little-known Croatian painter who
had recently moved to France. An admirer of Dubuffet, he would go
on to assist the older artist in mounting ten exhibitions at the foyer,
including the remarkable carvings of a Spanish-born cork-maker,
Joaquim Vicens Gironella.

Yet despite these numerous and varied displays, despite the accom-
panying booklets edited by La Compagnie de l’Art Brut, despite the
constant resistance to the cultural mainstream, Le Foyer de l’Art Brut
remained at a dead-end: invisible and unknown to the public at large.

VI

Dubuffet did not see his new foyer as being tied to one location. He
envisioned exhibitions at home and abroad, projects which would
disperse his idea on art brut. In October 1949 he returned for a brief
sojourn at Galerie René Drouin. This time the installation occupied the
Joaquim Vicens Gironella
entire ground floor, with over 200 works and 63 makers displayed in untitled
broad daylight. c 1945

20 Essay 21
 Amongst the plethora of objects on view were statuettes made of
wood and coal by Gaston Chaissac, a self-taught painter and poet
long celebrated by Jean Paulhan et Raymond Queneau. There were
also a selection obsessive faces and detailed botanies by the British
doodler, Scottie Wilson, brought to Dubuffet’s attention by the Surre-
alists Roland Penrose and ELT Mesens.

Dubuffet was confident he would set the art world ablaze. He penned
a text whose title could not have been clearer, and which would go
on to become his manifesto: L’Art brut preferé aux arts culturels.

Dubuffet’s subversive intent only encouraged Drouin, whose gallery

had now become an experimental forum and a venue for debate.
Together, they welcomed artists like Paul Klee, Jacques Villon, Gino
Severini, Raoul Ubac, Hans Hartung and Clovis Trouille. Yet despite
the fanfare, the recipe failed to impress. The media fell silent. The few
fans there were, seemed not to understand the nature of this revolu-
tion. Even André Breton appeared more committed to his Surrealist
uprising than to Jean Dubuffet’s art brut.

It was a brave but doomed attempt. The foyer returned quietly to its
home at Pavilion Gallimard. Dubuffet and his wife Lili worked togeth-
er and alone to give it some permanence. From that day on, until its
closure in 1951, the collection would be presented without a formal
exhibition schedule. It seemed like a slow-down, but the truth was
more complex. If art brut was an engine for Dubuffet’s own artistic
practice, it also took up too much of his time. The artist had simply
decided to concentrate on his own oeuvre.
There was, however, to be one final moment. In January 1951,
Dubuffet organised an exhibition of five artists in northern France. To
Gaston Chaissac
untitled coincide with this modest presentation, he delivered one of his most
1944 controversial speeches: Honneur aux valeurs sauvages. In it, he at-

22 Essay 23
 tacked the values of Western culture and criticised its misconception
of madness. People equated art brut with art of the insane, even
Breton himself. The surrealist had gone so far as to declare art brut
confusing and redundant. For him, art of the insane was a category
in itself, and one whose geography had been thoroughly mapped.
Dubuffet countered: no criterion ... justifies the kind of discrimina-
tion which labels some art as sane and other art as pathological.

The disagreement marked a final rupture between the two men and
L’Almanach de l’Art Brut would never to see the light of day. With
the pavilion no longer suitable to contain the collection, and with
the lack of commitment shown by too many phantom members of La
Compagnie de l’Art Brut, Dubuffet closed down the association and
brought Le Foyer de l’Art Brut to an end.

In the coming months, Dubuffet would move himself and the collec-
tion to America, where his professional career as an artist finally
took root. Le Foyer de l’Art Brut was now a footnote in art history.
Yet its energy would continue to radiate, thanks to its contrary and
visionary advocate, a man who would always fight for its discover-
ies, insights and truth.

Only in art brut can we find the natural and normal processes
involved in the creation of art - and in their purest and most
elemental state.

Jean Dubuffet, 1951

24 Essay Research 25
 André Breton, philosopher/poet
[Robert & Sonia Delaunay, artists]
[Max Jacob, artist/critic]
Joseph-Oscar Müller, collector
Jean Paulhan, editor/writer
Charles Ratton, gallerist
Henri-Pierre Roché, writer
Michel Tapié, critic/musician
Tristan Tzara, artist/poet

Robert Doisneau, photographer

Otto Freundlich, artist
Albert Gleizes, artist Les Barbus Müller Gaston Chaissac
Anatole Jakovsky, collector/critic
Asger Jorn, artist
(dates unknown, France) (1910-1964, France)
André Lhote, artist/critic Named after the eponymous Chaissac was a farmer, handyman
Aime Maeght, gallerist
Jean Paulhan, editor/writer Swiss collector Josef Müller, Les and artist who spent much of his
Michel Ragon, critic/historian Barbus Müller refer to a group of life in rural France. His writing
volcanic stone carvings owned by attracted the attention of Jean
Victor Brauner, artist
André Breton, philosopher/poet Jean Dubuffet, André Breton and Paulhan and Raymond Queneau.
Tristan Tzara. These anonymous He went on to produce a sub-
Dr Alfred Bader, collector LES BARBUS MÜLLER bearded figures inaugurated stantial body of visual material,
Slavko Kopač, artist
GASTON CHAISSAC le Foyer de l’Art Brut and were including drawings, paintings and
Paul Éluard, poet
FLEURY-JOSEPH CRÉPIN
considered to be among its most sculptures. Chaissac saw himself
Dr Gaston Ferdière, poet/psychiatrist
Dora Maar, artist important finds. It is generally as a modern folk artist and this
Pablo Picasso, artist ALOÏSE CORBAZ considered that there were several is what perhaps led to a rift with
Gérard Vuillamy, artist
Raymond Queneau, poet AUGUSTE FORESTIER authors of these neo-pagan works Dubuffet, who considered the
Tristan Tzara, artist/poet
PIERRE GIRAUD
which likely had some original production too informed simply to
ritual use. be defined as art brut.
Robert Doisneau, photographer MIGUEL HERNANDEZ
Robert Giraud, poet/writer
JUVA Marguerite Burnat-Provins Aloïse Corbaz
Vicomtesse de Gaigneron, gallerist
AUGUSTIN LESAGE (1872-1952, France) (1886-1964, France)
Michel Tapié, critic/musician
A lifetime aesthete, artist and The sensual drawings, paintings
PASCAL-DÉSIR MAISONNEUVE
André Breton, philosopher/poet poet, Burnat-Provins was inspired and murals of the ubiquitous
Isamu Noguchi, designer
Michel Tapié, critic/musician
LOUIS SOUTTER by a unprovoked series of intense Corbaz were brought to Jean
ADALBERT TRILLHAASE imaginings, first experienced in Dubuffet’s attention by Jacque-
André Breton, philosopher/poet Egypt during an episode of ty- line Porret-Forel, a young doctor
Jean Meyer, patron/spiritualist SCOTTIE WILSON
Eugène Osty, patron/spiritualist phoid. From 1914 on, she realised at a Swiss psychiatric clinic. The
ADOLF WÖLFLI these ames parasitaires in a single oeuvre speaks of a mysterious
André Breton, philosopher/poet
André Lhote, artist/critic body of work - Ma Ville - com- and seemingly autobiographi-
Benjamin Péret, author prised of some 3,000 drawings cal love-affair, often in the form
Jacques Senné, collector
of psychic hallucinations, with the of books or folded sheets, and
René Auberjonois, artist subjects often dictating not only features unusual materials such as
Le Corbusier, architect their colour and form, but a biog- petals and packaging, delicately
Herman Hesse, writer
Jean Giono, writer raphy which would appear on the sewn into the artwork to create a
back of each work. unique form of collage.
Otto Dix, artist
Otto Pankok, artist

André Breton, philosopher/poet

ELT Mesens, artist/gallerist
Roland Penrose, artist/gallerist
Pablo Picasso, artist

André Breton, philosopher/poet

Carl Gustav Jung, author/psychotherapist
Dr Walter Morgenthaler, psychiatrist
26 Networks Biographies 27
 Fleury-Joseph Crépin Joaquim Vicens Gironella Hector Hyppolite Pascal-Désir Maisonneuve
1875–1948, France (1911-1997, Spain) (1894–1948, Haiti) (1863-1934, France)
Crépin was a 63-year-old The Catalonian-born Gironella By trade a shoe-maker and Pascal-Désir Maisonneuve was a
Spiritualist who, like his mentor grew up in a family of cork-mak- house-painter, Hector Hyppolite mosaicist and antiquaire, whose
Victor Simon, had initiated an art ers and spent much of his adult was a third-generation voodoo immaculate and satirical shell
practice for the purposes of divine life engaged in the profession. priest - or Houngan - whose assemblages formed a caricature
healing. This former plumber After serving in the Spanish Civil chicken-feather paintings of island cast of royal, political and literary
claimed that his gridded poin- War, he began to carve increas- spirits and rituals were spotted by elites. Championed by his friend
tillist architectures were guided ingly complex reliefs from the Dewitt Peters, the American wa- and collector, the French artist
by heavenly forces and would material, drawing his ideas from tercolourist who ran Haiti’s only André Lhote, Maisonneuve’s rare
collectively foster world peace. literature, myth and religion. Gi- art studio. Fêted and promoted and humourous masks would
They achieved their goal when the ronella believed that the organic by the likes of André Breton and eventually come to symbolise the
war ended in 1945. Their maker shape of cork should decide his the Cuban artist Wilfredo Lam, very essence of La Collection de
died just three years later, having imagery, an approach which Hyppolite’ s practice soon blos- l’Art Brut.
produced over 350 paintings. seemed to influence Dubuffet’s somed and legend of the Haitian
own figurative oeuvre. Matisse spread across Europe
and America.

Auguste Forestier Miguel Hernandez Juva (Prince Antonin Juritzky) Augustin Lesage
(1887-1958, France) (1893-1957, Spain) (1887-1961, Austria) 1876-1954, France
Auguste Forestier began a playful The swirling dreamscapes of this Juva was the nom de plume of a Like his friend, Fleury-Joseph
artistic practice after being sec- elusive painter were first discov- lapsed nobleman and academic, Crépin, Lesage was a healer who
tioned at the Saint-Alban Hospital ered in a Parisian gallery by art who was also an obsessive collec- was guided by voices to paint the
for apparently derailing a passen- critic Michel Tapié. Hernández tor of curiously-shaped flint stones. beyond. Although first conceived
ger train. There, his modest draw- was a peasant-born anarchist from The so-called artist presented them in private, this former coal miner’s
ings developed into ambitious Spain, whose formative years in as evidence of anthropomorphic practice developed into a series of
three dimensional contructs. Using Brazil had helped fashion pre-cultural making and designed public performances. The resulting
discarded materials, he carved his radical socialist stance. After special wooden stands to reveal artworks, some monumental in
furniture and toys for friends and a lifetime of frontline activism, their meaning via a specific scale, were littered with overt
visitors. Word spread and the Hernández retired to Paris and orientation. Although Juva did not mystical, religious and historical
soldiers and medallions, mythic dedicated himself to painting the fit the archetype of an anti-cultural references, intended to convert
bestiary and mighty naval vessels memories of his youth and the artist, he remained one of the rar- the uninitiated and reveal the
were subsequently snapped up by beloved wife he had lost during est and highly prized discoveries truth.
Pablo Picasso and the Surrealists. their wartime struggles. in art brut.

28 Biographies Biographies 29
 Louis Soutter Scottie Wilson
(1871–1942, France) (1888–1972, Britain)
Trained in architecture, like his Perhaps it was a nervous tic which
cousin Le Corbusier, Soutter inspired the prolific morality scrib-
was a professional musican, art blings of Scottie Wilson, the pen
educator and polymath, whose name of Jewish emigre and for-
increasingly eccentric behaviour mer thrift store owner, Louis Free-
led to enforced hospitalisation. man. His fountain pens sprung to
In the 1920s Soutter initiated a life in middle age and made their
dense, cross-hatched oeuvre, devoutly non-commercial owner
sometimes filling the margins of famous. Lionised by George Mel-
published volumes. Following the ly, the British surrealists and Pablo
onset of arthritis, he resorted to Picasso, this humble doodler was
finger-painting. These haunted and eventually persuaded to exhibit
quasi-religious figures are his most and sell his artworks at Arcade
widely known works today. Gallery and Gimpel Fils.

Adalbert Trillhaase Adolf Wölfli

(1858-1936, Germany) (1864-1930, Switzerland)
Infamous for his inclusion in the The prolific and narcissistic Wölfli
Nazi’s Entartete Kunst exhibition is often considered the patron
of 1937, Trillhaase was a wealthy saint of art brut. Jean Dubuffet
merchant whose the larger-than- discovered his work on an investi-
life legend was immortalised by gative trip to Switzerland, where
his friend, the painter Otto Dix. he met with Dr Walter Morgen-
Trillhaase’s love of bible and myth thaler, the pioneering physician
translated into his own late-life who published a monograph on
oeuvre of flattened figures and his patient-artist. Wölfli’s semi-au-
foreshortened perspectives, more tobiographical output was fêted
nuanced than those of his so- by the Surrealists for its dense
called naive peers. Trillhaase went indecipherable prose, complex
on to become a member of Der musical annotation and ethnologi-
Blaue Reiter artist group. cal influences. Le Foyer de l’Art Brut
courtesy of La Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne

30 Biographies 31
 ART BRUT
> 1920-21 // travels > 1920s // early influences

32
JD => travels to Algiers with his parents JD => discovers mediumistic drawings of Clémentine Ripoche

1920s
> 1922-23 // networks JD => discovers Dr Hans Prinzhornʼs Bildenerei der Geisterkranken
JD + Paul Budry => travels to Lausanne

1920s
JD => meets Fernand Léger/Juan Gris/André Masson > APRIL // research
JD + Henri Michaux => researches childrenʼs art
> 1930 // business > MAY - JUNE // research + discoveries
JD => starts wine company in Bercy JD + Anatole Jakovsky => researches asylum/hospital art
> 1937 // marriage JD + Jean Paulhan/Paul Éluard/Tristan Tzara/Pablo Picasso => discovers Auguste

1930s
JD => marries Emile Carlu (Lili) Forestier (St Alban Hospital, Midi-Pyrénées)
> JULY
JD + Herbert Heard => sees exhibition of childrenʼs art (British Council, Paris)
> MARCH - APRIL // art > JULY // Swiss travels + discoveries
JD => makes art: Metro + Jazz series JD + Paul Budry/Jean Paulhan/Le Corbusier => discovers William Blake/ex-votos/masks
> JULY // travels JD + Eugène Pittard => discovers Hélène Smith/Albert Lubaki (Ethnographic Museum, Geneva)

1943
JD + Lili Dubuffet => bicycle travels across France JD + Dr Charles Ladame => discovers Robert Gie/Joseph Heuer/Julie Bar/Jean Mar/Berthe
Urasco (Bel Air Asylum, Geneva)
> FEBRUARY - JULY // networks + art JD + Dr Walter Morgenthaler/Dr Jakob Wyrsch => discovers Adolf Wölfli/Heinrich
JD => studio visits: René Drouin + Georges Limbour/Jean Paulhan/Pierre Seghers Anton Müller (Waldau Asylum, Bern)
Paul Eluard/Eugène Guillevic/Francis Ponge/Jean Fautrier/René de Solier JD + + René Auberjonois/Le Corbusier => discovers Louis Soutter
JD => invents name Art Brut

1944
JD => makes art: Messages series
> OCTOBER - NOVEMBER // art + Galerie René Drouin > SEPTEMBER // discoveries + investigations
JD + Dr Gaston Ferdière => discovers Guillaume Pujolle/Marguerite Burnat-Provins

1945
JD + Pierre Seghers => illustrates book: Lʼhomme du commun (Poésie 44, Paris)
JD => Tableaux et dessins (Galerie René Drouin, Paris) + critical attacks JD + Gaston Gallimard => agrees to publish Les Cahiers de lʼArt Brut

> APRIL // research

> JANUARY - APRIL // art + exhibitions JD + Dr Jacqueline Porret-Forel => researches Aloïse Corbaz
> JD + Eugène Guillevic => illustrates book: Les Murs (Les éditions du Livre, 1950) > OCTOBER // publications + Gallimard

1945
JD => exhibition: Lithographies (Galerie André, Paris) JD + Gaston Gallimard => preparations for Les Cahiers de lʼArt Brut *
JD + Gaston Chaissac => commences 18 year correspondence

1946
> JUNE // art + networks
JD => makes art: Hautes Pâtes series
JD => studio visits: André Malraux/Balthus/Jacques Lacan > JUNE - JULY // publications + discoveries
JD + Jean Paulhan => visits patron Florence Gould JD => writes text for Gaston Chaissac exhibition (Galerie LʼArc-en-ciel, Paris)
JD + Lili => visits Antonin Artaud (Rodez Asylum) JD + Gaston Gallimard => publication: Les Barbus Müller et autres pièces
> SEPTEMBER // networks + travels de la statuaire provincial
JD + Jean Paulhan/Wols/René Drouin => travels to Auvergne JD + Gaston Gallimard => publication agreement cancelled
> AUGUST
JD + Brassaï => researches graffiti for publication
> MAY - JUNE // exhibitions > NOVEMBER - DECEMBER // exhibitions + Galerie René Drouin, Paris
JD => exhibition: Mirobolus, Macadam & Cie (Galerie René Drouin, Paris) JD => opening of Le Foyer de lʼArt Brut
Michel Tapié => text: Mirobolus, Macadam & Cie(Galerie René Drouin, Paris) JD => opening of exhibition: Barbus Müller
JD => exhibition: Jean Dubuffet (Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York) JD => Michel Tapié becomes director of Le Foyer de LʼArt Brut
1946

JD => publication: Prospectus aux amateurs de tout genre (Gallimard, Paris)

1947

Michel Tapié => exhibition: Henri Salingardes/Xavier Parguey

> JULY - DECEMBER // art + networks
JD => makes art: Paysages grotesques + Portraits series
JD + Georges Braque => discourse on art > DECEMBER - MARCH // Michel Tapié + Galerie René Drouin, Paris
Michel Tapié => makes Aline Gagnaire/Robert Giraud assistants
Michel Tapié => exhibitions/books: Robert Véreux/Lamy + Miguel Hernandez
Michel Tapié => exhibition + book: Pierre Giraud + Jan Krizek
Michel Tapié => exhibition: Fleury-Joseph Crépin

> JANUARY - FEBRUARY // exhibition + travel > MAY - JUNE // André Breton + discoveries
JD => exhibition: Jean Dubuffet (Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York) JD => meets André Breton + discovers Hector Hyppolite
JD + Lili Dubuffet => travels to Sahara Desert JD + ELT Mesens => discovers Scottie Wilson
> JUNE // art + exhibitions JD => discovers Juva (Prince Alfred Antonin Juritzky)
JD + Lili Dubuffet => travels from Sahara Desert JD + André Breton/Benjamin Péret => discovers Pascal-Désir Maisonneuve
JD => sells wine business > JUNE - AUGUST // exhibitions + Galerie René Drouin, Paris
1947

> OCTOBER - NOVEMBER // exhibitions JD + Michel Tapié => exhibition: Auguste Forestier/Jeanne Tripier/Heinrich-Anton Müller
JD => exhibition: Portraits (Galerie René Drouin, Paris) + physical attacks JD + Michel Tapié => exhibition: Juva
JD => exhibition: Lithographs (Pierre Matisse, Gallery, New York) JD + Michel Tapié => exhibition: 10 Artists *
1948

JD + Robert Giraud => closes Le Foyer de lʼArt Brut at Galerie René Drouin
> NOVEMBER // travel
> SEPTEMBER // exhibition + Pavillion Gallimard, Paris
JD + Lili Dubuffet => travels to Sahara Desert
JD => re-opens Le Foyer de lʼArt Brut at Pavillion Gallimard *

Timeline
JD => makes Slavko Kopač director Le Foyer de lʼArt Brut
> OCTOBER // La Compagnie de lʼArt Brut
JD + André Breton/Jean Paulhan/Charles Ratton/Henri-Pierre Roché/Michel Tapié
=> formation of non-profit La Compagnie de lʼArt Brut
JD + André Breton => starts work on lʼAlmanach de lʼArt Brut *
> OCTOBER - NOVEMBER // research + Pavillion Gallimard, Paris
JD + Claude-Lévi Strauss => researches prisoner art
> APRIL // travel JD + Dr Walter Morgenthaler => exhibition + book: Adolf Wölfli
JD + Lilli Dubuffet => returns from Sahara Desert JD => exhibition + book: Joaquim Vicens Gironella
> NOVEMBER - DECEMBER JD + Jean Gagnebin/Jacqueline Porret-Forel => exhibition + book: Aloïse
1948

JD => exhibition: Paintings and Gouaches (Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York)
JD => text: Ler Dla Campane (La Compagnie de lʼArt Brut, Paris)
> JANUARY - MARCH // Slavko Kopač + Pavillion Gallimard, Paris
JD + Slavko Kopač => exhibition: 20 artists *
JD + Slavko Kopač => exhibition: Jeanne Tripier/Auguste
* Forestier/Heinrich-Anton Müller
> MARCH - APRIL // travels
> APRIL - JUNE // Slavko Kopač + Pavillion Gallimard, Paris
JD + Lili Dubuffet => travels to Sahara Desert
JD + Slavko Kopač => exhibition: Adolf Wölfli
> OCTOBER - DECEMBER // publications + exhibition
JD + Slavko Kopač => exhibition: 10 artists *
1949

JD => publication: Anvouaiaje par in nimbesil avec de zimage (Desjobert, Paris)

JD => exhibition: Dessins et peintures (Galerie Geert van Bruaene, Brussels) Jean lʼAnselme + Slavko Kopač => publication: Histoire de lʼAveugle
1949

JD + Paulhan => publication: La Métromanie (Desjobert, Paris) JD + Slavko Kopač => exhibition + book: Miguel Hernandez
JD => meets Alfonso Ossario/Jackson Pollock > JUNE - SEPTEMBER // Slavko Kopač + Pavillion Gallimard, Paris
JD => permanent exhibition: Le Foyer de l'Art Brut (until September 1951)
> OCTOBER - DECEMBER // exhibition + Galerie René Drouin, Paris
JD => book: LʼArt Brut préféré aux arts culturels
> JANUARY - JULY // exhibition + publications
JD => exhibition: 63 artists *
JD => exhibition: Paintings: 1943-1944 (Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York)
JD => exhibition: La Métromanie (Galerie Nina Dausset, Paris)
1950

JD => publications: Labonfam abeber par inbo nom + Plu kifekler mouinkon nivoua > SEPTEMBER // German travels
JD + Werner Schenk => research at Dr Hans Prinzhorn collection + hospitals/psychiatrists
JD + Werner Schenk /Dr von Braunmülh => discovers Eugène Gabritschevsky
1950

> JANUARY - MARCH // exhibitions + art (Eglfing-Haar asylum, Bavaria)

JD => exhibition: Paintings (Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York)
JD => exhibition: Pour connaître mieux Jean Dubuffet (Galerie Rive Gauche, Paris) > JANUARY: exhibitions + publications
JD => exhibitions: Sol et terrains + Tables paysagées series JD => exhibition: 5 artists * (Librairie Marcel Evrard, Béthune)
1951

(Galerie Rive Gauche, Paris) JD => conference: Honneur aux valeurs sauvages (Faculté des Lettres, Lille)
> SEPTEMBER - DECEMBER // travels + exhibition
> SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER // end of Le Foyer de lʼArt Brut
1951

Clement Greenberg => supports JD

JD => dissolution of La Compagnie de lʼArt Brut
JD + Lili Dubuffet => travels to America
JD => permanent separation with André Breton
JD => exhibition: Jean Dubuffet (Arts Club of Chicago)
33

JD => Le Foyer de l'Art Brut at Gallimard closes

JD => lecture: Anticultural Positions (Arts Club of Chicago)
JD => collection departs for America
 ....................................................................................................
* Le Foyer de l’Art Brut
1946 Les Cahiers de l’Art Brut
Les Barbus Müller Aloïse Corbaz Fleury-Joseph Crépin Auguste Forestier Heinrich Anton Muller
Xavier Parguey Somuk Louis Soutter Adalbert Trillhaase Berthe Urasco Adolf Wölfli
....................................................................................................
1948 Exhibition
Maurice Baskine Gaston Chaissac Aloïse Corbaz Fleury-Joseph Crépin Pierre Giraud Joaquim
Vicens Gironella Miguel Hernandez Jan Krizek Henri Salingardes

1948 L’Almanach de l’Art Brut

Alphonse Benquet Louis Capderoque Aloïse Corbaz Fleury-Joseph Crépin Joaquim Vicens ....................................................................................................
Gironnella Miguel Hernandez Hector Hyppolite Dr Charles Ladame Pascal-Désir Maisonneuve
Xavier Parguey Heinrich Anton Muller Henri Salingardes Robert Tatin Adalbert Trillhasse
Berthe Urasco Scottie Wilson Adolf Wölfli

1949 Exhibition ....................................................................................................

Aloïse Corbaz Joaquim Vicens Gironella Miguel Hernandez Robert Tatin Adolf Wölfli

1949 Exhibition
Jean L’Anselme Marie-Louis B. Gaston Chaissac Aloïse Corbaz Paul End Auguste Forestier
Miguel Hernandez Heinrich Anton Müller Jeanne Tripier Adolf Wölfli
....................................................................................................
1949 L’Art brut préféré aux arts culturels
Gottfried Aeschlimann Antinéa Benjamin Arneval Aymon Julie Bar. Béguin Alphonse Benquet
George Berthomier Ernst Bollin Albino Braz Le Barbare Guillaume Gaston Chaissac Mau-
rice Charrieau Aloïse Corbaz Fernand Costa Fleury-Joseph Crépin Joseph Degaudé-Lambert
Qadour Douida Gaston Duf Paul End Henri Filaquier Auguste Forestier Willi Otto Gappisch
Robert Gie. Pierre Giraud Joaquim Vicens Gironella Gustav Miguel Hernandez Joseph Heuer
....................................................................................................
Aimable Jayet Juliette Élisa Bataille Juva Sylvain Lecocq Stanislas Lib Pascal-Désir Maisonneuve
Jean Mar Xavier Parguey Clotilde Patard Raymond Oui Georges Roger Henri Salingardes
Jaime Saguer Marguerite Sirvins Somuk Jean Stas Amélie Stern Robert Tatin Jeanne Tripier
Berthe Urasco Victor Waedemon Scottie Wilson Adolf Wölfli
.................................................................................................... ....................................................................................................
The Gallery of Everything would like to thank La Collection de l’Art
Brut, Lausanne, for their support with this show, as well as Sophie and
Agnès Bourbonnais, Baptiste Brun, Marcel and David Fleiss, Sarah
....................................................................................................
Lombardi, Vincent Monod, Jean-Pierre Ritsch-Fisch, Guillaume Zorgbibe
and all those involved in researching Le Foyer de L’Art Brut.

Déborah Couette is an art historian and curator. Publications include ....................................................................................................

Collectionner l’art brut (Albin Michel, 2016). Céline Delavaux is a writ-
er and doctor in literature. Publications include L’Art Brut, un fantasme
de peintre (Palette, 2010). Couette and Delavaux co-curated Il était une
fois l’art brut (Art et Marges Musee, 2014). ....................................................................................................

Concept James Brett, Déborah Couette

Essay Déborah Couette, Céline Delavaux ....................................................................................................
Diagrams James Brett, Déborah Couette, Meg Jones
Edit/Translation James Brett
Publication © The Gallery of Everything 2016

34 Exhibition Lists Notes 35

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36 Notes 37
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