Biography
Hans Prinzhorn
(6. 6. 1886 – 14. 6. 1933)
Hans Prinzhorn was born in Hemer, Westphalia in Germany. In 1908, after receiving a doctor’s degree in the history of art at the University of Vienna, he left for England where he prepared for a career as a professional singer. During World War I, he served as a male nurse and broadened his qualifications with medicine and psychiatry. In 1919, he became an assistant to Karel Wilmanns at a psychiatric unit based in the University clinic in Heidelberg. His main task was to enlarge the collection of works of art produced by mentally ill people. When he left the clinic two years later, the collection included 5,000 works by more than 400 authors.
Prinzhorn then worked for a short time in various sanatoriums in Zurich, Dresden and Wiesbaden. In 1925, he opened a private practice in Frankfurt. Prinzhorn never succeeded in obtaining a long-desired university post, even though he did not hesitate in flirting with Nazism to that end. His subsequent books and studies did not manage to garner particular acclaim or recognition and his private life also suffered with three failed marriages. In the autumn of his life, Prinzhorn completely retired from public life, and he moved in with his aunt in Munich, where he died of typhus in 1933.
art brut from the legendary
collection of German psychiatrist
6. 2. - 3. 5. 2009
City Gallery Prague,
Stone Bell House
Old town square
Prague 1
Open:
Tue – Sun.
10 a.m. – 8 p.m.
