Michel Nedjar was born in 1947 in Soisy-sous Montmorency (Val d’Oise) to an Ashkenazi mother and a Sephardic father. The third in a family of 7 children, he became passionate about fabric very early on – his father being a tailor –, making dresses for his sisters’ dolls – with which he secretly played – and helping his grandmother sell old rags (Schmatess) at the flea market. As an adolescent, he became painfully aware of the Holocaust, of the history of his family, in large part fallen victim to Nazism: the tragic dolls he then began to make are reminiscent of this. He subsequently went on numerous trips to Asia and Mexico, where he discovered the magical Kachina dolls and the mummies: “They weren’t dead. They had their costumes, their dresses glued to their skin.” It was upon his return that he made his first dolls (his “soul flesh” series, a pun on the French for “dear ladies”) out of rope, rags and feathers that he would soak in a bath of dirt, dye and blood. As many burnt cadavers as mutilated bodies. Starting in 1980, his creativity extended to drawing, wax and painting. When Dubuffet discovered him and started to collect his dolls, Nedjar was introduced to Art Brut: enthusiastic, he himself began to seek new artists, to collect their works and co-founded – with Madelein Lommel and Claire Teller – L’Aracine.* Thus, Nedjar entered doubly into the world of Art History, as a scout for Art Brut, and above all, as an artist. Roger Cardinal dedicated a leading article to him in the Fascicules of Art Brut and more than 20 or so of his works are in the National Museum of Modern Art thanks to the Cordier donation.