dublinka

The work feature here, is Else Blankenhorn's poetry album. Diagnosed variously with catatonia and dementia praecox her work was one of the acquisitions from the now infamous Prinzhorn collection - which among other things inspired the coining of the term art brut. I've been reading the story behind the collection in Beyond Reason Art and Psychosis and it's a fascinating but dark tale. Work was often obtained from patients by a mixture of threats and rewards. And the collection was later used by the Nazi's as part of their propaganda programme, degenerate art, before they burnt some of it. Else died before that in 1921, but as with other patients, she worked with whatever materials she could get her hands on. I have yet to see the text but I've read that it's there...(Thanks for the gift D.)