Wyss, Eugène
untitled
Eugène Wyss, untitled, s.d., carved stone, 5,8 x 3,9 x 2 cm, photo : Marie Humair, Atelier de numérisation – Ville de Lausanne, Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne
Author
Wyss, Eugène,
(dates unknown), Switzerland
Biography
The works by Eugène Wyss (dates unknown) come from the cabinet of Dr Charles Ladame, former chief medical officer at the Bel-Air Clinic, near Geneva. In 1948, Ladame donated his collection of works produced in psychiatric hospitals to Jean Dubuffet, via the Compagnie de l’Art Brut. Wyss’s sculptures belong to a second donation that the psychiatrist’s son, Gerard Ladame, made to the Collection de l’Art Brut in 1991. There is very little reliable biographical information regarding the artist.
His stone carvings (the corpus also includes a nucleus) feature human faces in profile or full-face, sculpted on one or both sides. The size, just a few centimetres, and meticulous execution, lend these works a curious flavour and a charm redolent of cameos.