Frédéric Dard/San-Antonio in Bourgoin-Jallieu (Isère (38))

75 rue de la Liberation, where Frédéric Dard was born.

And, shut up at the time of our visit, the San Antonio café close to the house of Dard's birth, which opened in Dard's lifetime.

And finally the wonderful (and wonderfully named) sculpture Objet Dard (2003) by Bertrand Lavier, which is in the centre of town at the end of avenue Frédéric Dard. On the monument the 175 San Antonio books by Dard are named.

Frédéric Dard/San-Antonio in Saint-Chef (Isère (38))

Frédéric Dard (1921-2000), the writer of many gloriously far-fetched policiers crammed full of slang (some words invented by Dard himself) spent part of his childhood in Saint-Chef in the département of Isère, a place near to his heart and where he is buried. He was also known as San-Antonio after the cop he created.

The school where Dard was a pupil is now private premises, but this plaque remembers him today in what is now Place Frédéric Dard.

A part of the village museum is also dedicated to the writer.

'FRÉDÉRIC DARD

DIT SAN-ANTONIO

1921 - 2000'

Marius Riolet in Saint-Chef (Isère (38))

Yes, Saint-Chef has another writer, although nowhere near as well-known as the village's very famous son (posts to come shortly). Marius Riolet (1889-62) was a novelist, playwright and historian who was born in Saint-Chef and died in Geneva. His novel La fin du monde won the Prix Émile-Augier in 1961.

Bruno Montpied: Marcel Vinsard, l'homme aux mille modèles (2016)

Writer, painter, film director and researcher Bruno Montpied specialises in art brut, art naïf, art singulier, art modeste, art hors normes, outsider art, or whatever name anyone cares to label an art form which is outside the boundaries of the conventional. He co-scripted Rémy Ricordeau's film Bricoleurs de Paradis (2011), wrote Éloge des Jardins Anarchiques (2011) and also wrote the colossal Le Gazouillis des Eléphants (2017). His Marcel Vincent is a short and fascinating book under Insomniaque's imprint 'La Petite Brute', containing many photos Montpied took when visiting Vinsard's home in Pontcharra, Isère (38).

The artist Marcel Vinsard (1930-2016) spent thirty years as a men's hairdresser in Pontcharra. Necessarily for such a trade, and by nature, he was a very sociable person and an example of his spindly work, which was inspired by Giacometti's L'Homme qui marche, was installed in the mairie in Pontcharra some years before he died. Apparently it was after being given a book on Alberto Giacometti which provoked Vinsard to begin his huge work in and around his home, amounting to one thousand works. But as Montpied remarks, the cliché made by an unimaginative reporter in a local paper — 'Le Facteur Cheval de Pontcharra' — merely echoes other lame nicknames, and indeed I've heard of L'abbé Fouré described as 'Le Facteur Cheval de la Bretagne', and Rémy Callot as 'Le Facteur Cheval du Nord'.

At first Vinsard began working in wood, such as his bust of his grandfather Célestin Revol, although he soon learned that polystyrene — much lighter, more malleable, easily portable, etc — was far more suited to his needs. There were one thousand figures in all, and Vinsard was not only willing to allow the curious inside his 'chalet' to view his creations, but he openly encouraged it by his self-advertising signs outside his house, and cycling around the village with an advert on his front shopping basket, and a bust of his deceased wife at the back.

Vinsard's figures are rooted in reality, and are arranged in no particular order, members of his family democratically side by side with heads of states and popular celebrities: Gérard Depardieu, Nicolas Sarkozy, François Hollande, Roselyne Bachelot, Coluche, François Mitterrand, Jacques and Bernadette Chirac, Eddie Mitchell, Groucho Marx, Albert Einstein, etc.

Marcel Vinsard, who was in hospital with a serious heart complaint, died before being able to read this book about him and his work. Before he died many of his works had been plundered, many of them had suffered from neglect of upkeep due to his hospitalisation. It is hoped that they will re-appear in brocantes or other places to enable some of his works to be recuperated.

Montpied refers to a 28-minute video clip on YouTube, made by Yvan Ducognon in 2013, in which Marcel Vinsard describes some of his creations, and this is fascinating: Le Jardin extraordinaire de Marcel V. 

Art brut (Outsider Art) and associated:
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Rémy Callot, Carvin (Nord)
Carine Fol (ed.): L'Art brut en question | Outsider Art in Question
Kevin Duffy, Ashton-in-Makerfield
The Art Brut of Léopold Truc, Cabrières d'Avignon (34)
Le Musée Extraordinaire de Georges Mazoyer, Ansouis (34)
Le Facteur Cheval's Palais Idéal, Hauterives (26)
The Little Chapel, Guernsey
Museum of Appalachia, Norris, Clinton, Tennessee
Ed Leedskalnin in Homestead, Florida
La Fabuloserie, Dicy, Yonne (89)
Street Art City, Lurcy-Lévis, Allier (03)
The Outsider Art of Jean Linard, Neuvy-deux-Clochers (18)
Jean Bertholle, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Jean-Pierre Schetz, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Jules Damloup, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Camille Vidal, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Pascal Verbena, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
The Art of Theodore Major
Edward Gorey's Yarmouth Port, Cape Cod, MA
Marcel Vinsard in Pontcharra, Isère (38)
Vincent Capt: Écrivainer : La langue morcelée de Samuel Daiber
The Amazing World of Danielle Jacqui, Roquevaire (13)
Alphonse Gurlie, Maisonneuve (07)
Univers du poète ferrailleur, Lizio, Morbihan
Les Rochers sculptés de L'Abbé Fouré, Rothéneuf, Saint-Malo
Robert Tatin in Cossé-le-Vivien, Mayenne
La Demeure du Chaos, Saint-Romain-au-Mont-d'Or, Rhône (69)
René Raoul's Jardin de pierre in Pléhédel, Côtes d'Armor
Emmanuel Arredondo in Varennes Vauzelles, Nièvre (58)
Musée de la Luna Rossa (revisited), Caen, Calvados (14)
La Fontaine de Château-Chinon, Nièvre (58)