The archives of L'Aracine’s art brut collection (1981-1996) 297 documents dans la collection
The L'Aracine Association, with its comprehensive collection of some 3,500 works assembled since 1982 and located in Neuilly-sur-Marne since 1984, had to close its doors in March 1996. The choice of a Museum of Modern Art as a potential recipient may be explained by the fact that the north of France has a long art brut tradition: Jean Dubuffet stayed in Pas-de-Calais from 1962 to 1964, psychiatrists took an interest in patients’ outputs, and a number of art brut artists (including Fleury-Joseph Crépin, Paul Engrand, Jules Leclercq, Augustin Lesage and Victor Simon) were born in the region. The L'Aracine Association donated its art brut collection to the LaM in 1999. It gifted its library to the Museum at the same time, along with archives containing several thousand documents. A complementary donation of archives was made by Madeleine Lommel in 2001.
The archives bring together files on artists, some included in the collection others not, documentary files on institutions, museums and galleries presenting art brut, theme-based files, including on spirits and mediums, dweller-landscapers and children’s drawings, and documentation produced by L’Aracine itself in the context of its various activities. They contain letters, photographs, many of them of artists in their creative contexts, typewritten, handwritten and photocopied texts, administrative documents, articles and press cuttings, invitation cards, and posters and other iconographic documents. They constitute an essential resource for research on the collection’s works and artists, due to the administrative documents they contain and the letters and iconographic documents, on the history of the L’Aracine Association, its origins, constitution and exhibitions, and, more generally, on art brut as a whole.
The archives bring together files on artists, some included in the collection others not, documentary files on institutions, museums and galleries presenting art brut, theme-based files, including on spirits and mediums, dweller-landscapers and children’s drawings, and documentation produced by L’Aracine itself in the context of its various activities. They contain letters, photographs, many of them of artists in their creative contexts, typewritten, handwritten and photocopied texts, administrative documents, articles and press cuttings, invitation cards, and posters and other iconographic documents. They constitute an essential resource for research on the collection’s works and artists, due to the administrative documents they contain and the letters and iconographic documents, on the history of the L’Aracine Association, its origins, constitution and exhibitions, and, more generally, on art brut as a whole.
INVENTORY:
Find the inventory of the L'Aracine archives here
Collection Tree
- Les archives de la collection d'art brut de L'Aracine (1981-1996)