A portrait gallery of creators on the margins of
art brut gardens, houses and environments, of which Francis David has compiled a monumental photographic inventory since the late 1970s.
Between 1978 and 1992, then in the early 2000s and finally in 2025, Francis David travelled the length and breadth of France on several occasions in search of gardens, houses and environments associated with art brut and spontaneous creations.
From this monumental exploration, he took over fifteen thousand Kodachrome photographs, immortalising ephemeral installations spread across one hundred and fifty sites. This collection constitutes a unique record of uncharted places, some of which have since disappeared.
However, it is not just the places themselves that form the heart of the project, but also the creators who inhabit them — their faces, their gestures, and their presence in these worlds that they have shaped in their own image. This work has never before been published in its entirety and will be presented for the first time in a book bringing together the 'official portraits' of these marginal figures absorbed in a world they have built to suit themselves.
The book thus offers a panorama of a France that is often invisible and which could only be approached by a man with the curiosity and gentleness of Francis David. Over the decades, he has opened doors, crossed thresholds and revealed gardens, from the late 1970s to the present day. This collection of images will be accompanied by a text by
Baptiste Brun, a lecturer and researcher in the history of contemporary art.
In 1978, Francis David discovered the home of Raymond Isidore, known as Picassiette (1900–1964). Intrigued by this total work of art, he undertook research that led him to discover other sites. From then on, he travelled the length and breadth of France for three weeks a year, for several consecutive years (from 1978 to 1992), in search of these unique folk art environments. He took over 10,000 photographs of these ephemeral installations in 150 different locations. This collection serves as a unique record of these sites, which had previously gone unrecorded and have since, for the most part, disappeared. The slides present overviews of the structures and portraits of the artists in situ, allowing the work to be presented as comprehensively as possible with a documentary aim. Following his meeting in 1997 with the LAM museum, dedicated to the conservation and accessibility of art brut, the photographer decided to entrust around 2,200 of his slides so that they could be digitised and used for museum and archival purposes.
2026 (publication expected by 3rd quarter)
bilingual edition (English / French)
25 x 17,8 mm (open spine binding, dust jacket)
472 pages (280 ill.)
ISBN : 978-2-9596121-2-1
EAN : 9782959612121
forthcoming
