11 - Josette Rispal (French, born in 1946)

Josette Rispal (French, born in 1946) Chiffonnette Fabric, metal, and light-emitting threads. H 75, W 19, D 6 cm. Provenance: collection of Laurent Danchin (1946–2017), writer, essayist, and art critic, passed down through the family. A woman of contrasts, Josette Rispal doesn’t calculate. She elevates the discarded, amassing treasures of materials that she makes it her mission to transform and reuse. “I made myself entirely from scratch, starting with nothing; I’ve always been used to being careful. So I search, I find things in the trash, I arrange them, I paint them. [ ] In my home, everything is askew. I was born in Auvergne, surrounded by rocks, volcanoes, and materials twisted in every direction. And my work is the same—I think there’s a connection,” writes the artist on the website of the Musée de la Création Franche in Bègles, which acquired a set of 12 “chiffonnettes” in 2026. A self-taught artist from Aurillac, she has been developing her “masks of light” since 1977, working with glass as well as assemblages and found objects, in symbiosis with Chomo, who is both her friend and patron. Equally at ease with intimate and monumental scales, she was named a Knight of the Legion of Honor (2009) and is featured by the Musée de la Création Franche in Bègles, which has just acquired twelve of her “chiffonnettes.”