Adolf Wölfli

Adolf Wölfli , born on February 29th, 1864 with Bern and deceased in an asylum of Bern on November 6th, 1930 is a Artiste Suisse.

Biography

His/her father, Jakob Wölfli, stone mason of profession, are alcoholic, become criminal and finish in prison. In 1875, it turns over in its native land where it succumbs to the Délirium tremens. Adolf Wölfli claims, in its imaginary biography, that his/her parents had seven wire by which he was the junior. His/her Anna mother was probably washing machine.

In 1872, the father gives up his family hardly installed with Bern where she dies of hunger in spite of the devotion of Anna. In October of the same year, after all, or almost, was sold with the biddings, the family arrives at Schangnau, in her commune of origin. The assembly communal, convened, Adolph place and his/her mother at a peasant, adviser of State and farmer with Cherlishof, commune of Bumbach. They will be separate in January 1873.

It goes from farm in farm where, witness of drinking bouts and obliged itself to drink, it is sometimes maltreated at the point to miss the school and received sometimes better. At nine years, he learns death from his mother. Initially Chevrier, he is farmhand as from 1880.

After several assaults with intent to commit rape on very young girls, " this maletic temptation " , he is imprisoned in 1890, then, after a last repetition, he is declared irresponsible and internee in 1895 with the lunatic asylum of Waldau, close to Bern where he remains until his death.

Work

In 1899, it starts to draw, write and compose of the music. During thirty years, Adolf Wölfli accumulates 1.300 drawings, 44 books where its many scientific and religious theories are exposed, through long amphases where the words are deformed or created, transformed orthography, vowels and consonants doubled or tripled to accentuate the rate/rhythm of the sentences and its imaginary biography of 25.000 pages, “the Legend of Adolf Saint”, in which he affirms a new knowledge, quasi encyclopedic.

Its work is preserved essentially at the museum of the Art schools of Bern where it is development by the Foundation Adolf Wölfli.

Anecdote

Wölfli could be one of the models of Moravagine, the insane and criminal hero of the novel of Blaise Cendrars which had, during his studies of medicine in Bern (1909), the occasion to go to the asylum of Waldau.

Some publications

Monographs

Dr. W. Morgenthaler, Ein Geisteskranker als Künster: Adolf Wölfi , Bern/Leipzig, 1921

Republications Dr. W. Morgenthaler, Adolf Wölfli . Translation and foreword of Henri-pol. Stopped. Paris, Publications of rough Art, 1964. Dr. W. Morgenthaler, Madness and Art: The Life and Works off Adolf Wölfli , Ùniversity off Nebraska Near, the USA, 1992).

Collective, Adolf Wölfli 1864-1930, Werk aus einer Privatsammlung , Basle, Kupferstichkabinett, Kunstmuseum, 1971
Adolf Wölfli (collective). Foundation Adolf Wölfli, Museum of the Art schools, Bern, 1976. With a chronological presentation of the life and work of Adolf Wölfli by Elka Spoerri.
Elsa Longhauser & Elka Spoerri, The Other Side off the Moon. The World off Adolf Wölfli , catalogs exposure, Philadelphia, 1988
Collectif, Wölfli, Draftsman-Type-setter , Editions the Old one of Man, Lausanne, 1991
Marianne Wackernagel von Schwabe, Adolf Wölfli , Sondereinband, 1998
Daniel Baumann & Elka Spoerri, The art off Adolf Wölfli , Princeton University Press, 2003

Writings of Wölfli

Von der Wiege (a) zum Graab, Oder, Durch arbeiten und schwitzen, leiden, und Drangsal bettend zum Fluch. Schriften 1908-1912 (Of the cradle to the tomb, or, by work and sweat, the suffering and deprivations, by the prayer even, towards the damnation). Ecrits1908-1912, Foundation Adolf Wölfli, Museum of the Art schools of Bern, Frankfurt, 1985

Notable articles/whole Chapters of books

Michel Thévoz, rough Art . Geneva, Albert Skira, coll " Peinture" , 1975,1980.
Wölfli: empire of the dream , chapter 5, p 76-88, in Outsiders, insane, naive and indicators in the modern painting (1889-1960) of Christian Delacampagne, Mengès Editions, Paris, 1989
Wölfli by Elka Spoerri, Raw N°4 Vision, 1991
Adolf Wölfli: Year examination off the “Funeral March”, the Swiss Visionary' S final voluminous Illustrated books by Edward Gum, Raw Vision N°18, 1997
Saint Adolf II, Empereur of gigantism , p 76-91, in the Primitive ones of the 20th century of Jean-Louis Ferrier, Terrail, 1997
the phenomenon Adolf Wölfli , Chapitre 2, p 22-30 in the rough Art of John Maizels, Phaidon, 2003

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