The Collection de l'Art Brut at 50: What's On and Why It Matters
The world's first museum of art brut opened in Lausanne in February 1976. Fifty years on, here's what its anniversary programme offers and why the museum still matters.
By The Outsider Artist editors, Editorial team, Website Studio
Published
· 2 min read
In February 1976 a small museum opened in an 18th-century mansion in Lausanne, Switzerland. It held about 5,000 works that the French artist Jean Dubuffet had spent three decades collecting: drawings, paintings, sculptures and embroideries by psychiatric patients, mediums, prisoners and isolated makers. It was the first public museum in the world devoted entirely to what Dubuffet called art brut. In 2026 it turned 50.
How big is the collection now?
The Collection de l'Art Brut has grown enormously since Dubuffet's gift. It now holds more than 70,000 works, including drawings, paintings, sculptures, photographs and textiles. It has added major groups of work over the years, including a large donation of Henry Darger's work in 1992, and it continues to acquire.
What is in the anniversary programme?
The museum marked its anniversary with a programme running from February 2026 into 2027:
- Swiss Art Brut: From the Origins of the Collection to the Present (February to October 2026), curated by the museum's director, Sarah Lombardi, drew only on the museum's own holdings, from Dubuffet's core collection to works added since 1976, with unpublished archive material.
- The World of Armand Schulthess (27 November 2026 to 25 April 2027) presents more than 300 objects from the open-air environment Schulthess created on a hillside in Ticino from the 1950s, acquired by the museum in 2024. The environment itself no longer exists; large photographs by the film-maker Hans-Ulrich Schlumpf, who documented it before it was destroyed, accompany the objects.
The museum has also published an English edition of Swiss Art Brut: The Collection From Its Origins to the Present Day.
Why does Lausanne still matter?
Dubuffet insisted that art brut be kept together and shown on its own terms, not mixed into the mainstream. Fifty years later, that idea is debated: many museums now show self-taught and trained artists side by side, and the labels themselves are argued over. But Lausanne remains the place to see the founding artists of the field together: Adolf Wölfli, Aloïse Corbaz, Madge Gill, Augustin Lesage, Henry Darger and many more. See our guide to Jean Dubuffet and art brut.
Planning a visit
The Collection de l'Art Brut is at Avenue des Bergières 11, Lausanne. It is open Tuesday to Sunday from 11am to 6pm, and also on Mondays in July and August. Entry was CHF 12 in 2026, with free entry on the first Saturday of each month. Check the museum's website for current prices and opening times before you travel, and combine your trip with the Adolf Wölfli Foundation at the Kunstmuseum Bern, about an hour away by train. See outsider art museums in Europe and the US.
