Adolf Wolfli was a poor farm worker who was placed in a mental hospital in eighteen ninety-five. He soon started making color drawings that he organized into books. For example, around nineteen twelve he finished a nine-book series called “From the Cradle to the Grave.” In this work Mister Wolfli turned his sad childhood into a magical travel story. He included detailed drawings of maps, creatures, rulers, and even talking plants to help capture this imaginary world. In other books, he recreated and renamed the world and universe. He described this world using songs, poetry, and drawings.
STEVE EMBER:
In the nineteen forties the French artist Jean Dubuffet discovered Mister Wolfli’s works and other artists like him. He called this kind of artwork “Art Brut” which is French for “raw art.” He described Art Brut as being created from pure and real creative forces. He saw outsider artwork as being free from the worries of competition and social acceptance that define the official art world. He argued that the official culture of museums, galleries and artists had lost its power.
Art Brut, he said, was still true and powerful art. Jean Dubuffet soon started collecting this kind of art made by mental patients, prisoners and even children. In nineteen seventy-one he donated his personal collection of Art Brut to the city of Lausanne, Switzerland.
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BARBARA KLEIN:
One way to learn more about this movement is to explore its artists. The American Folk Art Museum in New York City has several rich and inventive drawings by the self-taught artist Martin Ramirez. Mister Ramirez was born in the Mexican state of Jalisco in eighteen ninety-five. He left his wife and family in the nineteen twenties to find work in the American state of California.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25