THÉRÈSE BONNELALBAY
b. 1931 Magalas, France
d. 1980 Ivry-sur-Seine, France
WORKS | BIOGRAPHY | EXHIBITIONS | PUBLICTIONS
WORKS
BIOGRAPHY
Thérèse Bonnelalbay was born in the Hérault department to a coal miner. At age 19, she moved to Marseille, where she worked as a nurse. A few years later, in 1959, she married the poet and translator Joseph Guglielmi. They both regularly attended Communist Party meetings. At one of these meetings in 1963, Thérèse spontaneously began automatic drawing. Her drawings were simple, fluid ink marks oscillating between abstract forms, representational elements, and asemic writing. Her work was extremely original, and her husband, enthusiastic about the unusual creations, encouraged her to continue. Thus, her unconsciously controlled drawings became a habit and her purpose in life.
Bonnelalbay regarded her artistic production as a for of mediumistic inspiration. She also received long mediumistic texts, mostly in small, precise handwriting. The words were connected by a single, continuous line, and the texts sometimes incorporated small drawings. Unlike her drawings, which consisted increasingly of ethereal, sweeping, feather-light ciphers where pictorial elements and writing merged into an inseparable symbiosis, her automatic writings appeared hard and angular.
Her drawings were often compared to those of Henri Michaux, and Jean Dubuffet greatly admired her work. In 1975, she moved to Ivry-sur-Seine with her husband and two children. On February 16, 1980, Thérèse Bonnelalbay disappeared without a trace, much like her delicate, enigmatic lines lost in the white of the page. A month later, her body was found in the Seine near Suresnes.
SELECTED EXHBITIONS
2022
Writing is Drawing. Centre Pompidou-Metz. 11/6/2021 – 2/21/2022
2019
Flying High: Women Artists of Art Brut. Kunstforum, Vienna, 2/15 – 6/23/2019
PUBLICATIONS
Fascicule de l'Art Brut N°11. Lausanne: Collection de l'Art Brut, 1982.
