Fleury-Joseph Crépin

1875-1948 · Hénin-Liétard, France

A plumber turned spirit-healer who was told that his 300th painting would end the war. He finished it on 5 May 1945, the day Germany surrendered.

The life

Crépin was born in 1875 in Hénin-Liétard in the mining country of northern France, and worked as a plumber, roofer, hardware merchant and water diviner, playing clarinet in his father’s café. Around 1931 he joined a spiritualist circle in Douai after encountering the painters Augustin Lesage and Victor Simon, and became a healer, treating dozens of visitors a day with his hands. In 1938, aged 63, his hand began moving involuntarily while copying sheet music, and the painting started. Voices told him that 300 paintings would end the war and 45 more, his tableaux merveilleux, would bring lasting peace. He completed number 300 on the day of the Nazi surrender and died in 1948 with two of the final 45 unfinished. André Breton bought two paintings and the Surrealists hailed him.

The work

Oil paintings of glowing symmetrical temples and palaces, drawn out with compass and ruler and finished with his secret technique of raised, beaded droplets of paint, the architecture alive with birds and creatures. He painted 345 canvases in nine years. His work is held by the Collection de l’Art Brut in Lausanne and the abcd collection in Paris.

Why we love them

He painted to a deadline set by angels and hit it to the day. No artist ever had a better excuse for working fast.

Go deeper

• Fleury-Joseph Crépin at the Outsider Art Fair
• Fleury-Joseph Crépin on Wikipedia
• abcd Art Brut
• Where to see outsider art, our full list of museums and collections.
• The glossary, if any of the terms here are new.

Kindred spirits

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