Mar 12, 2014
Adolf Wölfli (Swiss, 1864-1930)
Wolfli created all of his art, including thousands of pages of cryptic illustrated manuscripts, while institutionalized at a mental asylum in Switzerland. In 1890, at age 26, Wolfli was imprisoned for attempting to molest two young girls; he spent the rest of his life at the asylum composing music, drawing, and re-writing his own personal history in fictional form.
Like Henry Darger or Joseph Cornell, Wolfli’s mysterious work defies categorization. His paintings often included musical notes of his own invented musical language - he would even play this music on a paper trumpet while at the asylum.
