Des origines de la collection à aujourd’hui
Edited by Sarah Lombardi. Foreword by Metin Arditi. Texts by Michel Thévoz, Lucienne Peiry, Andreas Steck, Astrid Berglund, Eleanor Philippoz
Art Brut en Suisse is being published to coincide with an exhibition celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Collection de l’Art Brut. It brings together a wide range of works from the Lausanne museum’s collection that were created by Swiss artists or artists who worked in Switzerland.
With Switzerland as the common thread, this publication and the accompanying exhibition highlight the close and lasting ties between the originator of the concept of Art Brut, Jean Dubuffet, and this country. Indeed, it was this close bond that led him to donate his collection of outsider art to the City of Lausanne in order to ensure its preservation and the public’s access to it.
The book includes a foreword by writer Metin Arditi and a presentation by Sarah Lombardi, director of the museum and curator of the exhibition, followed by Jean Dubuffet’s own handwritten notes recounting his trip to Switzerland in search of extra-cultural works in the summer of 1945. This previously unpublished document is reproduced here in facsimile. Other authors provide further analyses of the works: Michel Thévoz, the museum’s first director; Lucienne Peiry, who succeeded him until 2011; Andreas Steck, president of the Aloïse Corbaz Association; and Astrid Berglund and Eleanor Philippoz, respectively curator and outreach coordinator at the Collection de l’Art Brut.
Sarah Lombardi is an art historian and has been director of the Collection de l’Art Brut since 2013. She has focused her efforts on raising the profile of the Lausanne institution’s collection, which comprises 70,000 works. Along with this historical approach, she continues to build the museum’s collection by discovering new outsider artists, to whom she dedicates exhibitions and publications.
Metin Arditi is the author of a significant body of work, including Le Turquetto (Actes sud, 2011, Jean Giono Prize winner), L’enfant qui mesurait le monde (Grasset, 2016, Mediterranean Prize winner), L’homme qui peignait les âmes (Grasset, 2021, Catholic University of the West Award winner), Tu seras mon père (Grasset, 2022, Machiavelli Prize winner), and Le danseur oriental (Grasset, 2025). He is a Commander of Arts and Letters and a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador.
Exhibition: Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne, 27 February – 27 September 2026
