LOUIS SOUTTER

 Indian ink and oil on paper, 1937

Finger painting, oil on rigid wove paper, 1942 

Louis Soutter (1871 - 1942)

In 1927, when he was already very famous, Le Corbusier went to visit Louis Soutter, a first cousin of his, in the Swiss Jura. Soutter, whose extravagant behaviour had got him into debt, had for the last four years been interned by the immediate members of his family in a Retirement Home in the town of Ballaigues and was to remain there until his death in 1941. Le Corbusier found there a man of 56, isolated from the other inmates, cultivated and diversely gifted for, as well as being a trained architect, he was also a draughtsman and violinist.

After playing for thirty years, Soutter had been obliged to give up the violin following the confiscation of his instrument by the authorities as partial payment for his upkeep. Although impoverished by his tutelage and internment, he had not lost the creative urge and in 1923, at the age of 52, he had taken up drawing again. By 1927, using pencil or pen, with ink filched from Ballaigues Post Office, he had done some 2000 drawings in ordinary school exercise books, on wrapping paper for foodstuffs or opened-out, used envelopes. In addition to this daily activity, Soutter would cover with drawings the pages of the books he was reading, Flaubert's Three Tales, Madame De Staël's Corinne, or Italy and Tell by René Morax among others.

Despite the rudimentary nature of Soutter's materials, Le Corbusier, captivated by his richly varied drawings and his broad culture, decided to support his cousin's work, giving him money and the necessary drawing materials, especially paper.

This was the beginning of a ten-year friendship, sustained by deep mutual respect and revealed by Le Corbusier's indirect influence on Soutter's later work. From 1930 to 1937 Soutter stopped using exercise books and, on separate sheets and in larger formats, reworked in more elaborate detail some of the themes previously worked on in the exercise books. This was the so-called "Mannerist" period of his work.

At the same time as the drawings on separate sheets collected by Le Corbusier, Soutter went on covering the pages of books with decorations, in particular Gustave Flaubert's Salammbô, François Mauriac's The Leper's Kiss and Rainer Maria Rilke's French Poems, as well as The Adventure of Thérèse Beauchamps by Francis de Miomandre, The Legend of the Glorious, Joyous and Heroic Adventures of Ulenspiegel and Lamme Goedzak in the Land of Flanders and Elsewhere by Charles De Coster and Journey through the Land of the Romanesque Sculptors by Alexis et Emmeline Forel.

At this period Soutter likewise added pen and Indian ink drawings, reminiscent of illuminations, to four of Le Corbusier's treatises given to him by their author: A House - a Palace, Crusade - or the Twilight of the Academies, The Decorative Art of Today and Modern Painting, the last of these co-authored by Le Corbusier and Amédée Ozenfant.These unique books, bringing together the thought of two great creators whose works were poles apart, are a decisive testimony to certain issues in 20th century artistic creation. Le Corbusier's acceptance of Soutter's request to have them bound in a leather cover is ample proof of the architect's commitment to the draughtsman's work.

The illustrations invade the margins and the spaces between the paragraphs, at times encroaching upon the text or upon certain photographs and giving the pages a unique visual rhythm.

As we read again through these pages completely renewed by Soutter's illustrations, possible new readings of the texts begin to appear and the two creators' antithetical visions come into perspective.

Le Corbusier bought from Soutter drawings from his exercise books and others from the so-called "Mannerist" period. Their technique makes use of both sketches and detailed work, particularly the nudes, the interpretations of Italian Renaissance masters, scenes of everyday life in the Old People's Home or in Ballaigues as well as ornamental scrolls using motifs taken from nature.

In 1936 Le Corbusier published an article in the review Le Minotaure, "Louis Soutter, l’inconnu de la soixantaine", together with a few of Soutter's "Mannerist" drawings. At the same time, Le Corbusier organized an exhibition of thirty or so of these drawings at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, in the United States, an exhibition Soutter was unable to attend.

The friendship between Le Corbusier and Louis Soutter came to an end when Soutter, suffering from osteoarthritis and eye trouble, gave up the style and themes of his drawing that had so attracted Le Corbusier and adopted the radically new technique of drawing with his fingers.The advent of the war making the long journey still more difficult, communication between the two finally ceased. In 1942, at the age of 71, Louis Soutter died alone at the Old People's Home in Ballaigues. 

Fondation Le Corbusier , 2012