The Patient Artist
Untitled by 'Frau St'
c1890, newspaper, gouache, chalk, pencil, glue
This work survives in the collection assembled from 1919 onwards
by the psychiatrist and art historian Hans Prinzhorn in Heidelberg,
Germany. It was sent to Prinzhorn in 1920 by the director of a
private asylum in Vienna. The director concealed the identity of
the patient artist behind the name 'Frau St', and indicated a
diagnosis of dementia praecox (schizophrenia). Nothing more is
known about her. The date for the work is derived from the dates of
the newspapers she used.