Collection de l’Art Brut – Art on the edge of the ordinary

No art without drunkenness. But then: mad intoxication! let reason fall over! delirium!” raved the French painter Jean Dubuffet, to whom we owe the concept of Art Brut. Drunkenness, madness and delirium are the themes that run through your visit to the exceptional Art Brut Collection at Château de Beaulieu. After all, Art Brut refers to works created by self-taught artists outside of any institutional framework, rules or artistic considerations. This is how JeanDubuffet defined this artistic genre in 1945, while building up an impressive collection of some 5,000 works signed by 133 creators. In 1971, Dubuffet donated his collection to the City of Lausanne, which opened the Collection de l’Art Brut to the public five years later.

Since then, the museum has expanded its collection to include more than 60,000 works created by extraordinary men and women, originals, loners, outcasts and inmates of psychiatric hospitals. These include the exaltation of love and passion for theater of Swiss artist Aloïse (1886-1964), the monstrous beasts of Gaston Duf (1920-1966) and the imaginary bestiary of Heinrich Anton Müller (1865-1930). These are artists and works of art that shake up the way we look at things, and make us wonder about our vision of art.

Collection de l’Art Brut
11, av des Bergières
1004 Lausanne
Tel. 021 315 25 70
www.artbrut.ch