But it was his work on the art of the insane, conducted at Heidelberg university psychiatric clinic, that would stand as his greatest achievement. At last, the surrealist-in-chief André Breton wrote, someone had given insane artists a “presentation worthy of their talents”. They loaded 50 patients on to the buses, including Bühler, and drove them to a specially adapted home for disabled people at Grafeneck castle, in Swabia. By the war’s end, about 200,000 psychiatric patients would be killed by Hitler’s regime, including 30 Prinzhorn artists. Miraculously, most of the works survived, and inspired new generations of artists, including Jean Dubuffet, the creator of art brut (“raw art”).

Source: The Guardian August 08, 2021 08:37 UTC