Artistry of the Mentally Ill

Hans Prinzhorn (1886 – 1933), a German psychiatrist, musician, philosopher, and art historian, was born in Henrer in Westphalia. He studied art history and philosophy at Vienna University, where he obtained his doctorate in 1908. Shortly thereafter he moved to England and became a professional singer. He then studied medicine and psychiatry and during the First World War served as a doctor on the front lines. In 1919 he began working as an assistant to Karl Willmans in the psychiatric treatment centre at Heidelberg University. His job was to build a collection of art created by mentally ill patients. When he left in 1921, the collection contained more than 5,000 works by approximately 450 patients.
Art Work of the Mentally Ill (Bildnerei der Geisteskranken) was first published in 1922 and is a book of pioneering significance. It is the first instance of the wider contextual application of an interdisciplinary approach: Prinzhorn views the art works created by the centre’s psychiatric patients not just as diagnostic materials any more, but also appraises their qualities as real works of art. The book was enthusiastically received after its publication; it circulated in the Bauhaus milieu and immediately became the bible of the artistic avant-garde in Paris. It influenced Paul Klee, Alfred Kubin, Pablo Picasso, and the Surrealists, and inspired Jean Dubuffet, whom it inspired in his formulation of the concept of art brut. Hans Bellmer even described it as a fundamental event of the century. This is the first published Czech translation of the book.