Paris psychiatric hospital's art collection challenges myth of the ‘mad genius’

Guillaume Pujolle's "The Law of the Rebels", created in 1939 while the French artist was a psychiatric patient. His work is now part of the Sainte-Anne collection in Paris. © CEE - MAHHSA / Dominique Baliko

A collection of art built up inside a Paris psychiatric hospital is challenging one of the most persistent myths about mental illness – that it fuels creative genius. Paintings and drawings made over more than a century at Sainte-Anne hospital are being presented not as medical curiosities but as works of art, reflecting changing attitudes towards psychiatric patients.

The exhibition at Sainte-Anne brings together 145 drawings and paintings dating from 1858 to 2020, offering a window onto more than a century of changing attitudes towards art and mental illness.