Frédéric Bruly

FRÉDÉRIC BRULY (Zéprégüé, Ivory Coast, 1923 - Abidjan, Ivory Coast 2014).
Untitled, 2010.
Ballpoint pen and crayons on cardboard (x3).
Signed and dated on the back.
Measurements: 19 x 15 cm (x3).
During World War II, Bruly worked as a sailor in the French Navy in the West Indies. At the end of the war he was employed on the Dakar-Niger railroad in Rufisque (Senegal). Having left the railway service in December 1945, he started as a clerk in the "judicial identity service of the "general security in West Africa", in Dakar. From there he was assigned, in 1958, to the direction of police security in Ivory Coast. The Ministry of the Civil Service assigned him to the Ministry of the Interior, to the Directorate of Political Affairs in Abidjan, and the Directorate of the French Institute of Black Africa (IFAN), upon discovering that he was the inventor of an African alphabet, asked the Ministry of the Interior to transfer him to IFAN in Abidjan in 1958. The direction of the Faculty of Letters of the National University of the Republic of Ivory Coast having approved the scientific character and the classical sense of his manuscripts of which he came into possession, asked, in its turn, for their transfer to the university: service of the institute of ethnosociology, in 1973. The origin of all the work of Frédéric Bruly Bouabré comes from a revealing experience: on March 11, 1948, "the heavens opened before my eyes and seven colored suns described a circle of beauty around their Mother-Sun, I became Cheik Nadro: He who does not forget."
Since then, Bouabré compiled his research in manuscripts dealing with art, traditions, poetry, tales, religion, aesthetics and philosophy, revealing himself as an astonishing thinker, poet, encyclopedist, creator. Seeking a way to preserve and transmit the knowledge of the Bété people and the world, he invented a unique alphabet of 448 monosyllabic pictograms, an inventory of sounds that would make it possible to transcribe all the languages of the world.This endeavor earned Bouabré the legendary reputation of being another Champollion and translates the universal thought of Frederic Bruly Bouabré who, from his vision, seeks to unite and pacify humanity. In the 1970s, he began to translate his thought into hundreds of small drawings in postcard format, using ballpoint pen and colored pencils. These drawings, collected under the title Connaissance du Monde (Knowledge of the World), form an encyclopedia of universal knowledge and experience.
His works are currently held in important art collections among which are; Contemporary African Art Collection, Jean PIGOZZI Collection, Geneva, Switzerland, the National Museum of Abidjan, Abidjan, Ivory Coast, the National Museum of Modern Art, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France, the Endowment Fund, Agnès b Collection, Paris, France, the François Pinault Foundation, Palazzo Grassi, Venice, Italy, MNAM, Centre Georges Pompidou on deposit at the Musée des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie, Paris, France, the Groninger Museum, Groningen, The Netherlands, the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City, Mexico, the Tanya RUMPFF Gallery, Haarlem, The Netherlands, the Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom, the Musée d'Art Brut, Lausanne, Switzerland, the Lambert Collection (LAC), Geneva, Switzerland, the Madame and Monsieur David-Weill Collection, Paris, France and the Gervane et Matthias Leridon Collection, Paris, France.