Pacienți psihiatrici și artiști plastici – Adolf Wölffli (1864 Berna – 1930 Waldau/Berna) și Else Blankenhorn (1873 Karlsruhe – 1920 Konstanz)
Psychiatric Patients and Visual Artists – Adolf Wölffli (1864 Berna − 1930 Waldau/Berna) and Else Blankenhorn (1873 Karlsruhe − 1920 Konstanz)

Summary/Abstract: Hans Prinzhorn, art historian and physician, between 1919 and 1921 assistant doctor at the Heidelberg mental hospital, published in 1922 his renowned book Bildnerei der Geisteskranken/Artistry of the mentally ill, in which he presented ten talented patients, from the standpoint of their illness, but also as visual artists. The publication enjoyed great success among vanguard artists, being a real source of inspiration for them. In 1921, a year before Prinzhorn’s work was published, the psychiatrist Walter Morgenthaler released the monograph Ein Geisteskranker als Künstler/A mentally diseased as visual artist, a book in which he paid hommage to Adolf Wölfli, patient of the Waldau sanatorium and gifted artist. During his stay in Heidelberg, Hans Prinzhorn succeeded to collect an important number of art works from psychiatric patients, works which constituted the core of the nowadays museum named after him. Besides other important outsiders, the Prinzhorn collection houses also works from Adolf Wölfli and Else Blankenhorn, artists whose life and art are analysed in this paper.

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