Pierre Mabille

French doctor, psychologist and surrealist writer (2 August 1904, Rheims — 13 October 1952, Paris), best known as one of the editors of a renowned art & literary magazine Minotaure (1933–39). Pierre Mabille also served as a Professor at the School of Anthropology in Paris. He was a close friend and family doctor of André Breton, Man'ha Garreau-Dombasle (1898—1999), and several other notable surrealists. Mabille began his medical career as an intern at several Parisian hospitals and advanced to Head of Clinic and surgeon by 1931. He invented "Test du village" (Village test) — a projective test where a patient builds a fictional village out of standard blocks (houses, trees, stores), which psychologists then analyze. In 1934, Pierre Mabille joined the surrealist movement, soon becoming one the most influential and recognized authors. He joined a renowned Swiss publisher Albert Skira (1904—1973) and Greek-French art critic and publisher E. Tériade (1897—1983) on the editorial team of Minotaure. A lavish, extravagant publication with full-color illustrations, printed at Skira's impeccable standards, covered "plastic arts," poetry, literature, avant-garde, anthropology, ethnography, psychoanalysis, and more esoteric topics, and featured such renowned philosophers and artists as André Breton, Marcel Duchamp and Paul Éluard. During World War II, Pierre Mabille was appointed a military surgeon in the Caribbean. In 1945, he founded l'Institut Français (French Institute) in Haiti and the Haitian Bureau of Ethnology and began publishing a Franco-Haitian cultural review journal, "Conjunctions." Mabille also served as Cultural Attaché at the French embassy in Port-au-Prince. In December 1945, he invited André Breton to visit him in Haiti, and they attended authentic voodoo ceremonies together. Breton's visit coincided with the Haitian revolution and civil unrest; Mabille was subsequently relieved of his French Consulate's duties and returned to France in February 1946. Back in Paris, Mabille began collaborating with Néon surrealist magazine in 1948. As a writer, he advanced and explored many surrealistic concepts in "hermeticism" and psychoanalysis. Some of his most-acclaimed books include Thérèse de Lisieux (1936), a medico-psychological study of the saint "whose entire evolution is shaped by pathology," and a surrealist anthology Le Miroir du Merveilleux (1940).