Auguste Forestier French nationality Born in Langogne in 1887 Dies in the mental hospital of Saint-Alban-sur-Limagnole in 1958

In the medical literature, Auguste Forestier is called "Auguste" or "For". He has always been fascinated by railroads. Curious to see how the wheels of a train crush an obstacle, he decides to gather some pebbles onto the rails, causing the train to derail and his confinement to the mental hospital of Saint-Alban. He is only twenty-seven years old. A 1915 medical certificate reads as follows: "Intellectual weakness. The patient is proud of himself, is constantly drawing or sculpting animal bones." (Publications de la Compagnie de l'Art Brut, fascicule 8, Paris, 1966, p.74.)

He first works in a warehouse, then helps out in the kitchen, but ever since the beginning of his confinement, he draws constantly: a series of decorative busts with colored pencils as well as medallions and various commemorative emblems.

After 1930/35, Auguste dedicates himself entirely to an artistic production. He wears a kepi and clogs, decorative medals and sets up a small studio for himself in one of the corridors. He starts making wooden toys for the children of the staff: houses, boats and harnesses. Progressively, he produces more complex works for adults: winged monsters, figures with rabbits or birds on their heads, soldiers on foot or on horseback, celebrities from the First World War, etc. He puts up his works for sale on the walls of the hospital courtyard. Using a shoemaker's leather knife, he sculpts wood, adding various scraps onto it (nails, lids from boxes, old coins, pieces of fabric). Like a good craftsman, he prefabricates elements that he organizes in categories, so that he can later improvise his sculptures. It is a methodical and organized work; he proceeds through repetition and at the same time with freedom in his style.

Forestier has created a world the strength of which lies in the represented object as well as in the act itself. One can sense his determination and the savagery of the gesture. His work is more a cluster of objects rather than a sculpture. He does not search for harmony in the end result. He intentionally leaves everything visible, he underlines the sources of the parts as if to say that left to themselves, they are harmless (rubber, old leather, pieces of tire, feathers, wood, glass, capsules, etc.) but as a whole, they can become terrifying. One could believe that Auguste "wants to scare us" with his monsters wearing pigs' or horses' teeth, found in hospital trash cans, with the wings made from crates, with crests made from chicken feathers. Yet this gallery of portraits is the representation of his delirium, a straightforward act without any premeditation that does not ask for anything.

During the war, Paul Eluard hid in the Saint-Alban hospital with his friend, Dr. Lucien Bonnafé. He was able to acquire several works by Forestier, which would be later on bequeathed to Dr. Ferdière.

SEE ALSO: Publications de la Compagnie de l'Art Brut, fascicule 8, Paris, 1966.

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