St. Adolf-Giant-Creation
by Elka Spoerri, DanielBaumann,
by Elka Spoerri, DanielBaumann,
Edward M. Gomez, and
Gerard C. Wertkin
Review: I had never heard of Art Brut or Outsider Art until I read a few books on Henry Darger. I decided to do some research and came up with a few very interesting Folk Artists names that I had not known of and wanted to learn more about. So, I started with Adolf Wolfli, a prolific Swiss artist who is regarded as one of the foremost artists in the Art Brut or Outsider Art traditions. I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of information I could find through the Internet, but as for the local library, Nada! Oh, you guessed the mighty inter library loan card was drawn and I have in my possession 2 books about Wolfli. The one I read cover to cover is listed above and I think is a nice intro to the artist. It is so amazing to read actual excerpts from his writings, since he spent most of his adult life in Waldau Mental Asylum and was declared mentally incompetent and dangerous to society. He went in at the age of thirty-one and died there at the age of sixty-six. Wolfli's work can be divided into three distinct groups: early work; bread art, or single-sheet drawings; and the five bodies of narrative bookworks- From the Cradle to the Grave, Geographic and Algebraic Books , Books with Songs and Dances, Album Books with Dances and Marches, and the Funeral March. The bookworks comprise a monumental 25,000 pages of richly illustrated text. I personally love his work with pencils, collage and newsprint. I suggest this book to anyone who loves Folk Art and is intrigued by self- taught artists.
you have to check out these sites:
foundation: http://www.adolfwoelfli.ch/
Raw Vision Magazine: http://www.rawvision.com/back/wolfli/wolfli.html
select images: http://www.inmostra.net/ccs/wolfli/immagini.html
Galleries at Moore: http://thegalleriesatmoore.org/publications/wolfliel.shtml
great close-ups of his artwork: http://www.abcd-artbrut.org/article.php3?id_article=169
Review: I had never heard of Art Brut or Outsider Art until I read a few books on Henry Darger. I decided to do some research and came up with a few very interesting Folk Artists names that I had not known of and wanted to learn more about. So, I started with Adolf Wolfli, a prolific Swiss artist who is regarded as one of the foremost artists in the Art Brut or Outsider Art traditions. I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of information I could find through the Internet, but as for the local library, Nada! Oh, you guessed the mighty inter library loan card was drawn and I have in my possession 2 books about Wolfli. The one I read cover to cover is listed above and I think is a nice intro to the artist. It is so amazing to read actual excerpts from his writings, since he spent most of his adult life in Waldau Mental Asylum and was declared mentally incompetent and dangerous to society. He went in at the age of thirty-one and died there at the age of sixty-six. Wolfli's work can be divided into three distinct groups: early work; bread art, or single-sheet drawings; and the five bodies of narrative bookworks- From the Cradle to the Grave, Geographic and Algebraic Books , Books with Songs and Dances, Album Books with Dances and Marches, and the Funeral March. The bookworks comprise a monumental 25,000 pages of richly illustrated text. I personally love his work with pencils, collage and newsprint. I suggest this book to anyone who loves Folk Art and is intrigued by self- taught artists.
you have to check out these sites:
foundation: http://www.adolfwoelfli.ch/
Raw Vision Magazine: http://www.rawvision.com/back/wolfli/wolfli.html
select images: http://www.inmostra.net/ccs/wolfli/immagini.html
Galleries at Moore: http://thegalleriesatmoore.org/publications/wolfliel.shtml
great close-ups of his artwork: http://www.abcd-artbrut.org/article.php3?id_article=169
