Escape into imagination - Soutter's psychogrammatic imagery
Mysterious, enigmatic, painful, disturbing, powerful and always fascinating – all of these adjectives aptly describe Soutter's psychogrammatic imagery, especially the black-and-white finger paintings from his last creative phase. Like a diary, they seem to expose Soutter's vulnerable innermost being, an almost ecstatic account of his fears and fantasies. This deep, intimate painterly insight into the artist’s soul is equally disturbing and captivating. According to Michel Thévoz, the phase of the large-format finger paintings can be narrowed down to the years from 1937 to 1942, the year Soutter died. Before that, in the solitude of his room at the Ballaigue's mental home, he first made pencil and pen and ink drawings in fine lines and in a floral-ornamental style, followed by a more Mannerist style, filling scores of whole school notebooks over and over – the beginning of his artistic approach to coping with his tortured soul. Soutter's second cousin, the famous architect Le Corbusier, paid Soutter a first visit in Ballaigues in 1927. Over the following years he stood up for his relative so that his unique work would be recognized. In 1936, even before the beginning of the finger painting period, Le Corbusier described the special inwardness of Soutter's work in the magazine "Minotaure" as follows: "No more windows, these useless eyes.. he has learned to look inside. Through him we can fathom a man [..] who has passed through all the luxuries of wealth and a life full of insight, and who [..] covers a blank sheet of paper with those strong and admirable compositions when he returns to his room from the sad dining hall." (quoted from: Michel Thévoz, L. Soutter, 1970, p. 118). It is also thanks to Le Corbusier that Soutter's work was exhibited in America during his lifetime. He also ensured that Soutter had access to suitable drawing materials such as large-format paper, charcoal, ink and gouache. After his death in 1942, Soutter's oeuvre piled up in his room at the mental home which had been his whole world for the last 19 years. Stylistically, his work not only shows a progressive artistic parallel world, but also documents the technically equally important step: With the finger paintings from 1937, among which the present composition "Ceux qui récoltent" also counts, Soutter anticipates technical achievements of later performance art and thus gives his works a uniquely direct aura.

Misjudged, lonely, forgotten and posthumously rediscovered - the late art-historical appreciation of a spectacular oeuvre
Soutter's tragic life is a compelling and disturbing testimony to failure. After promising beginnings, the artist, who was born the second child of a Swiss upper-class family of pharmacists, was soon regarded an eccentric unable to meet the demands of an educated middle-class existence. Initially, prosperity opened up room for experimentation: Soutter began to study engineering, then switched to architecture, which he also gave up, in order to devote himself to the violin. At the age of 21 he became a student of Eugène Ysaÿe, professor at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels, violin virtuoso and composer. Ysaÿe was an important, positive figure in Soutter's life, as he promoted his exceptional gift for music and art. However, Soutter soon gave up his studies of music in order to attend various art and painting classes, first in Lausanne and later in Paris. In 1897 Soutter and his later wife, the rich American violinist Magde Fursman, whom he had met in Brussels, moved to Colorado Springs, where he would be head of the newly founded art department at Colorado College. However, this supposedly stable period in Soutter's life only lasted for a short time, because this step also quickly ended in a rupture and continued a history of private and professional failure: in 1903 he got divorced and he stepped down from his college post. Soutter returned to Switzerland a broken man. Soon after the eccentric dandy would only survives on odd jobs and lived beyond his means at the expense of his family. Soutter was finally placed under guardianship by his family and admitted to a Swiss mental home. Until his death in 1942, Soutter spent 19 years at the asylum in Ballaigues, where, in the seclusion of his room, he brought his very own artistic imagination to life. A fantatsic world that is unconventional in every respect, just like himself. Today his revolutionary, internationally sought-after work that negates all art-historical traditions is ascribed to early Art But. However, earlier it had long fallen into oblivion, until it was slowly rediscovered by the art world and exhibited in grand solo shows at the Kunstmuseum Bonn (1985), which also included the present composition, and the Kunstmuseum Basel (2002).
Soutter's "Shadow Figures" - revolutionary artistic testimonies of a passion
If one becomes aware what a disturbing effect Soutter's pictorial inventions of the last few years must have had on contemporary viewers at a time when the later creations of Nitsch, Penck, Dubuffet, or even Basquiat were still eons away, one has the feeling of being confronted with the psychogrammatic imagery of an unrecognized genius. Soutter's lets his black figures with their overlong limbs vaguely wander about the flat, abstract pictorial ground in enigmatic movements. They seem like the shadowy figures in Plato's Cave Allegory, images that the chained prisoners, who have never known any other existence, have to take for the truth. Unlike Soutter, who knows life outside the prison, but is condemned to an existence in the cave, and has gone on to create his very own artistic fantasy world.
Physically restricted, Soutter was able to free his mind with the help of art, a way to process the physical and mental suffering of imprisonment and isolation. Accordingly, his last works from after 1939, are characterized by the motif of the Christian Passion and thematic allusions to the Last Judgment. He might have been inspired by the atrocities of World War II or he saw parallels to his own torturous existence in the suffering of the betrayed Christ. In any case, Soutter's works of these years often bear titles such as "Golgotha", "Jesus", "Christmas of the Damned", "Leap to the Cross", "Resurrection" or "Station of the Blameless". The present composition, however, bears the hopeful title "Ceux qui récoltent", meaning "those who reap", and so the shadow figures on this sheet do not show any overly eccentric, tormented gestures, but appear to be content and even seem to dance a little, with one of the dancers resembling the figure of death as we know it from medieval Dance of Death illustrations. A few years before his own death, Soutter might have formulated the hope for the compensating justice of death, from which those who have been richly gifted on earth will not be able to escape, either.

Louis Soutter - non-conformist artist and an exceptional visionary
In 2021, the writer Lukas Hartmann dedicated a remarkable biographical novel to the impressive life of Louis Soutter under the title "Schattentanz"(Shadow Dance). The book is the very first step to make the fascination for this underappreciated artist and his work, which was completely unknown for a long time, accessible to a broader public. During Soutter's lifetime, however, it was only his cousin Le Corbusier who attributed outstanding artistic importance to the unique work of his idiosyncratic cousin. Today, however, Soutter's finger paintings of archaic-looking, black shadow figures are regarded the visionary creations of an absolutely exceptional artist and are hard to find on the international art market. Soutter's life is the story of a querulent loner unable to meet demands and expectations of an educated middle-class existence. His nonconformity ultimately led to him failing to gain a foothold in a bourgeois society: Soutter was never diagnosed with a mental condition. He was locked away for his unruly behavior, for the lack of respect for authorities and for impulsive decisions such as ordering twenty silk ties and sending the bill to his brother. Amusing anecdotes, that we might also hear of later artists who challenged society with their personality and art, such as Martin Kippenberger, Jonathan Meese or Andy Warhol. And so the the tragic story of Soutter's life is also the story of society’s failure to accept an artist with an unconventional personality and a visionary spirit. But despite all the tragedy, it took all of this painful experience of failure and exclusion to create such a dense work that is"permeated by the spirit of pain". [JS]