A friend of the political and literary celebrities of his time, Fernand Desmoulin was a highly renowned draftsman and engraver. Approaching fifty, he became involved in spiritualism and, between 1900 and 1902, produced a body of mediumistic work drawing on his psyche, using automatic creative processes that would fascinate the Surrealists, before joining the Collection de l’Art Brut in Lausanne. His work is among the iconic mediumistic pieces in the history of Art Brut.