Laure Pigeon – The Art Brut Collection, Switzerland

Laure Pigeon (1882-1965) was fifty-three years old when she began drawing. Her works, discovered after her death and saved from destruction, were acquired by Jean Dubuffet. The Art Brut Collection probably holds her entire output, which spans a period of around thirty years and includes just over four hundred drawings, many of which are contained in notebooks.

Like Madge Gill, Jeanne Tripier, Augustin Lesage, and Raphaël Lonné, Laure Pigeon is one of the spiritualist artists. These women and men entrust the responsibility for their creations to an external entity and feel “designated” by messages from the beyond. Laure first relies on the “oui-ja,” a spiritualist process where messages dictated by the spirits are written, letter by letter. This device acts as a trigger and encourages self-denial. Later, Laure Pigeon abandons it to let her hand run over the sheet as she pleases, revealing interwoven texts and drawings. The creator is immersed in a state that frees the unconscious, memories resurface and merge with her imaginary world.

In Laure Pigeon’s work, two main types of work can be distinguished. The former predominates the line that unfolds and winds, revealing profiles and forming words in its interlacing, reminiscent of knitted threads. Then, from 1953 onwards, blue blossomed, in luminous or more intense shades, sometimes even verging on black. These drawings unfold in different motifs: compact masses, dancing plant or animal forms, initials and names intermingled with figures, as well as a large parade of masked or veiled female silhouettes. In Jean Dubuffet’s eyes, however, the “highly poetic breath that inspires them” remains the same.

Regularly shown in the museum’s permanent collection, Laure Pigeon’s work was the subject of a single monographic exhibition, organized in 1978 by the Lausanne institution, which also published a booklet entirely devoted to her graphic production, L’Art Brut n°25, in 2014; this having previously given rise to few specific studies.

This new presentation dedicated to this historic figure of Art Brut reveals a large collection of works, some of which have never been seen before, which demonstrate graphic power, assurance of gesture and a sense of composition.

In the infinite blue, Laure Pigeon reveals herself.