The Collection de l'Art Brut has received an exceptional donation of works by resp. Marguerite Burnat-Provins and Gaston Teuscher

In May 2016, the Collection de l'Art Brut received fifteen compositions by Marguerite Burnat-Provins and thirteen drawings by Gaston Teuscher—a bequest made to honor the memory of Pierre et Marguerite Magnenat.

Pierre and Marguerite Magnenat took great interest in many forms of art—be it textiles, paintings, drawings, sculptures—and in dissident forms of artistic expression, such as art brut. A former professor in medicine, Pierre Magnenat was president of the Pierre Pauli Association in Lausanne.

From the First World War until the end of her life, Marguerite Burnat-Provins was chronically plagued by hallucinations: these would appear to her in the form of figures, birds or singular beings. Her visions inspired her to produce some three thousand strange drawings in lead pencil and pastels: these she entitled Ma Ville (my city).

Gaston Teuscher began drawing at the age of seventy-one: he executed compositions in extremely small formats on either metallized paper salvaged from cigarette packages or paper restaurant tablecloths. He would incorporate the stains and tears found in such supports, delineating faces and silhouettes in lead pencil or ballpoint pen, and heightening the results with color from coffee grounds, tobacco juice, ashes and wine.

This bequest represents a valuable addition to our already extant holdings by these two creators.

 

Publish Date: 04.07.2016