Aloïse CORBAZ

Having suffered heartbreak, Aloïse, then aged twenty-five, moves to Germany where she takes up the post of governess at the court of Emperor William II. At the start of the war in 1914 she has to go back to Switzerland, and is showing signs of behavioral problems. Her family decides to first commit her to the hospital in Céry then, from 1918 until her death, to the mental hospital of La Rosière in Gimel. Jacqueline PorretForel, the doctor who looks after her, analyses her works and shows them to Jean Dubuffet. Locked-up, Aloïse creates disconcerting works that follow rules which are hers alone. Memories resurface in her drawings: the splendor of the court of William II, royal couples, and theatrical scenery. She doesn’t reproduce them faithfully, but transfers them into a perpetually changing and extremely diverse world.