Louis Soutter Iii

Exhibition at Galerie Karsten Grève, Paris, 24 February - 04 May 2024

A learned and cultured man, Louis Soutter (1871-1942) was marked by personal difficulties and professional failures, and accumulated psychological suffering that had a profound influence on his art, adding a tragic dimension to his work.

Considered too eccentric by those around him, in 1923 the Swiss artist was placed in a hospice for the elderly and needy in Ballaigues, an isolated village in the Vaud Jura, where he began to draw at an intense pace: the "Notebook Period" was followed by the "Mannerist Period" in ink, pencil and pen. When he had no materials to hand, he drew at the post office in Ballaigues. Then almost blind and suffering from arthritic joints, in 1936 he began his finger paintings and drawings.

This exhibition catalogue presents a group of fourteen paintings, produced between 1930 and 1942, accompanied by portraits of the artist photographed by Theo Frey. The book gives a special place to finger painting, a technique that allowed the artist to translate his emotions and feelings onto paper in a visceral way.