50 years of the Lausanne Collection de l’Art Brut: between raw and rose-tinted

The Collection de l’Art Brut in Lausanne is turning 50 – and is marking the occasion with an exhibition. It tells the story of how an untamed art form found fertile ground in Switzerland. Art Brut en Suisse takes visitors back to the early days, when art created in psychiatric clinics went unseen for a long time.

Art Brut exists everywhere. It refers to art created by people without formal artistic training: amateurs, children, social outsiders and people with mental illness or intellectual disabilities. The discovery of Art Brut and its recognition as art, however, are closely linked to Switzerland.

The term Art Brut was coined by French artist Jean Dubuffet, who saw in this art a raw power untouched by the art world. In July 1945, Dubuffet travelled through Switzerland. He visited mental hospitals and prisons – places where some doctors and therapists had begun to view, and collect, pictures and objects created by patients with curiosity.

Adolf Wölfli: from indentured boy to creator of worlds

Psychiatrist Walter Morgenthaler observed, for instance, the patient Adolf WölfliExternal link at what was then the Waldau mental hospital (now the University Psychiatric Services Bern). The former indentured child was diagnosed with schizophrenia – and created thousands of drawings and collages in which he not only reimagined his childhood but also invented an entirely new world order. Morgenthaler recognised the artistic value of Wölfli’s work and published a book about him.

Jean Dubuffet was also fascinated by Wölfli. In 1948 he exhibited some of his drawings in Paris. At the Collection de l’Art Brut’s anniversary exhibition in Lausanne, two large sections are dedicated to Wölfli. No wonder: Wölfli became a cornerstone of Dubuffet’s Art Brut collection, which began to take shape in the 1940s.

In 1971 the collection was donated to the city of Lausanne. In February 1976 the Collection de l’Art Brut was founded – the first institution of its kind in the world.

The spirit of the times also shapes Art Brut

The exhibition Art Brut en Suisse brings together historical and contemporary works from the collection. It offers insight into how the definition of mental illness – and the treatment of those affected – has changed over the decades. It also shows that people who were already disadvantaged often ended up in psychiatric institutions. One example is Aloïse Corbaz from Lausanne.

She wanted to train as a singer but was forced to work as a maid. In rosy-hued paintings she depicted success and romantic happiness that were denied to her in real life.

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The exhibition reveals something else: how strongly Art Brut is shaped by the spirit of the times. Having a mental illness does not mean artists are unaware of the world around them. Some works displayed at the end of the exhibition could easily have come from the studios of trained artists or graphic designers with no psychiatric diagnosis.

Take the acrylic paintings by Clemens Wild. The Bern-based artist paints almost life-size women in work coats – cleaners, craftswomen – on packing paper, and writes short texts alongside them in which the fictional women introduce themselves. The stylised depictions feel strikingly lifelike. One could easily imagine them in a graphic novel or on an advertising poster.

Translated from German by AI/amva/ds