What is Art Brut?

Works of Art Brut are created by self‑taught artists, carved out in a rebellious mindset or impermeable to collective norms and values, who create without concerning themselves with public criticism or the gaze of others. Without a need for recognition or approval, these individuals forge a universe for their own use. Their works, produced with generally unique means and materials, are free from influences derived from artistic tradition and employ distinctive modes of figuration.

The concept of Art Brut is credited to the French painter Jean Dubuffet. As early as 1945 he assembled a collection of objects created by psychiatric hospital residents, inmates, and original, solitary or condemned individuals. He perceives in this marginal creative work a "whole-pure, raw artistic operation, reinvented in its entirety across all its phases by its author, derived solely from his own impulses." The notion of Art Brut therefore rests on social characteristics and aesthetic particularities.

Definition of Art Brut by Jean Dubuffet

« We understand this [Art Brut] as works executed by people who are free from artistic culture, where mimetic influence – contrary to what occurs with intellectuals – has little or no role, so that their authors derive everything (subjects, choice of materials employed, means of transposition, rhythms, forms of writing, etc.) from their own foundation and not from clichés of classical art or fashionable art. We witness a purely pure, raw artistic operation reinvented in its entirety by its author through all its phases, based solely on his own impulses. This art manifests only the function of invention, and not the persistent roles of the chameleon and the monkey that are constant in cultural art.».

Jean Dubuffet, from Art Brut Preferred over Cultural Arts, Paris, Galerie René Drouin, 1949.

Works in the permanent collection

Acrobates et bêtes fauves Acrobates et bêtes fauves — ***Acrobates et bêtes fauves***, **Ratier, Emile**, 1968

Les onze fleurs Les onze fleurs — ***Les onze fleurs***, **Wölfli, Adolf**, 1922

Sans titre sans titre — ***sans titre***, **Forestier, Auguste**, not dated

Montreuse de tableau dans la bannière de Montreux Montreuse de tableau dans la bannière de Montreux (page de cahier, détail) — ***Montreuse de tableau dans la bannière de Montreux (page de cahier, détail)***, **Corbaz, Aloïse** , 1941

Sources of information

Periodicals
Artension
Raw Vision
Gazogène
Folk Art Messenger
The Outsider

Blogs
Animula Vagula
The subtle dagger
Outsider Art Observatory
The CrAB blog (collective of reflection around Brut Art)
Outsider Art Magazine

Inventory
Computer catalogue of works from the Collection of Outsider Art

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Publications on Art Brut

Special poster by Guy Brunet "40th anniversary"

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Jean Dubuffet's Art Brut, the origins of the collection (2016) New edition 2020

L'Art Brut de Jean Dubuffet, aux origines de la collection [Jean Dubuffet's Art Brut, the origins of the collection], directed by Sarah Lombardi, with texts by Sarah Lombardi a.o., Lausanne, Paris: Collection de l'Art Brut, Flammarion, 2016, 224 pp, 170 color illus., bilingual French/English.

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L'Envers et l'Endroit

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Dubuffet & l'Art Brut

Dubuffet & l'Art Brut, 24 x 29 cm, 233 color ill., 191 pp. Editions 5 Continents/Collection de l’Art Brut, Milan/Lausanne,2005. In French and German.

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