Originally from Ticino, Pierre Garbani(1926-2001), called ‘Pierrot’, was born in Fribourg (Switzerland). Deaf and mute, he learned to read and write at a specialised institute in Fribourg. Affected by a mild learning disability, he was unable to live independently, thus, in 1946 at the age of twenty, he was admitted to the Maison Saint-Joseph in Châtel-Saint-Denis, a hospice founded by nuns in the nineteenth century, where elderly people and children lived together. From a young age, he was fascinated by the lives of saints and dreamed of being buried directly in the earth upon his death, like a Cistercian.

It was only in 1990 that Garbani began to paint with conviction, and in all made some two hundred paintings in gouache and watercolour. He worked in the workshop attached to the Maison Saint-Joseph, that had been built in 1986. Some of his compositions he painted outdoors, facing the mouth of the Rhone. He painted instinctually, making the colours resonate with the help of a brush, and focused on movement in his paintings of abstract nature.