Francesc Tosquelles: Avant-Garde Psychiatry, Radical Politics, and Art

Fleeing Franco’s Nationalist government during the Spanish Civil War, Catalan psychiatrist Francesc Tosquelles (1912–1994) arrived in 1940 at the Saint-Alban psychiatric hospital in the South of France. There, he pioneered avant-garde psychiatric practices that came to be known as “institutional psychotherapy,” aiming to cure mental illness and psychiatric institutions alike. Tosquelles fostered nonhierarchical interactions among patients, medical staff, laborers, and rural communities. During the German occupation of France, the Saint-Alban “asylum-village” became a haven for political dissidents and artistic figures, who were exposed to the remarkable creations of its patients, like Auguste Forestier, Marguerite Sirvins, and Aimable Jayet. Seeing these works prompted French artist Jean Dubuffet to coin the notion of “art brut” in 1945, beginning his celebrated collection. This publication explores Tosquelles’s subterranean influence on twentieth-century intellectual life, linking him to Antonin Artaud, Paul Eluard, Frantz Fanon, and Jean Oury, among others. It also delves into his legacy in the context of United States mental health history. 

INDEX 

Director’s Foreword 10

Introduction 14

Revolution and War: Delusions at the End of the World 72

Exile 96

Resistance 130

Art Brut 176

Disalienation 212

Legacies 256

Plates 294

Image List 328

Authors 343

Acknowledgments 349