Ariane Bergrichter
(1937–1996)
BornDresden, Germany
DiedBelgium
BiographyThe density of images of daily life in all its gritty detail that Ariane Bergrichter captured in hundreds of drawings—intensely drawn in ballpoint and felt-tip pen—testifies to the many hours she spent observing the people and places of Brussels. Yet there is a dark undercurrent to the scenes of cafes, tram stops, and bustling streets that reflects feelings of pain and isolation. Along with the fragments of overheard conversations annotating the drawings, which filled notebooks, paper scraps, collages, and beer coasters, are records of the internal, berating voices that haunted her. One reads, in part, “I have not had an hour of independence since 1988—It is as if one allowed a kettle whistle to blow in my head. Inhuman, experimental rat.”Born in Dresden in 1937, Bergrichter endured the 1945 bombardment of the city and the sudden death of a half-brother before marrying and moving to Belgium. She found success in Brussels as a model under the name Sonia—images of herself and fashion would later appear in her drawings—and had two children. A subsequent divorce, loss of custody, and deterioration in health from asthma and psychosis contributed to a decline that would endure the rest of her life. She initially found an outlet in elaborate assemblages of objects that she collected from the streets and staged on the walls of her apartment, although she ultimately destroyed them.
It was Bergrichter’s autobiographical writings and drawings, which she started in the late 1980s and continued into the early 1990s, that her family discovered heaped in trash bags after she died, in 1996. These were left in suitcases for two decades before her daughter finally unpacked them and brought them to the attention of the American Folk Art Museum, where they were shown for the first time in 2018 in the exhibition Vestiges & Verse: Notes from the Newfangled Epic. In 2022, Bergrichter’s first monographic show was presented at the Art et Marges Musée in Brussels.
Allison C. Meier, 2025
This artist’s work was reviewed as part of “Rethinking Biography,” an initiative supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).