1517383442Émile Ratier18941984Émile Ratier nailed and wired together scraps of wood and bits of discarded material, such as bicycle bells and can lids, for kinetic assemblages. Each has a sonic element to it, whether it’s the tick of a clock or the whirring of a windmill, as Ratier was blind and worked by touch and sound to construct and test the mechanisms of his creations. They include boats, vehicles, elephants, and Ferris wheels, all activated by cranks and pulleys. Appearing both crude and complex at the same time, these pieces often have whimsical touches such as roughly hewn people and donkeys. These and other objects, such as carts and grain sorters, recall the agrarian community in which he lived much of his life. Many, such as his fantastic take on the Eiffel Tower, are large in scale. Standing over six feet tall, it features a working elevator and is crowned with a merry-go-round. Ratier was born in 1894 into a farming family in Soturac in southwestern France. In his youth, he enjoyed making contraptions such as a wooden bicycle and car for his dog. He worked in agriculture until 1914, when he left to serve in the military during World War I. After the war, he rejoined his family and became a timber merchant and clog maker. Around 1960, his vision began to decline, and he was totally blind by his mid-sixties. He started making wooden devices as a way to occupy himself, using a workshop in the back of his farm that he accessed via a system of wires. Through the writer and critic Gaston Puel, his work was brought to the attention of Jean Dubuffet, who acquired a number of pieces for the Collection de l’Art Brut in Lausanne, Switzerland. Dubuffet subsequently connected him to the architect Alain Bourbonnais, who acquired his work in the 1970s for what became his La Fabuloserie museum in Dicy, France. Ratier died in 1984. Allison C. Meier, 2025 Text written as part of “Rethinking Biography,” an initiative supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). ÉmileRatierhttps://collection.folkartmuseum.org/internal/media/dispatcher/28230/full500094133(1894–1984)Villeneuve-sur-LotSoturacVilleneuve-sur-LotSoturacVilleneuve-sur-LotSoturacÉmile Ratier