Adolfi Wolfli (1864-1930)

Date
9 December 2008

Originally guest posted by Hvass&Hannibal

From a psychiatric hospital in Switzerland Adolph Wolfli wrote a huge epic story of 25,000 pages, containing 1600 detailed illustrations filled with musical notes and kaleidoscopical patterns.

Sadly most of the images found on the internet are very small, but you can still get a picture of his extremly detailed and very beautiful work. If interested, check you local library for books.

The story goes that the musical notes in his work started out being strictly decorative, but later developed to be real music that Wolfli performed on a paper trumpet!

American folk artist Henry Darger has a similar life story as an “outsider artist”. If you get the chance, there is a wonderful documentary about his inner worlds and his illustrated epic works, that is well worth seeing.

Share Article

About the Author

Alex Bec

Alex joined as director in 2008 and oversees the commercial side of The HudsonBec Group which includes It's Nice That, Anyways, Lecture in Progress and If You Could Jobs. Contact him to discuss working with us on sponsored content, commercial partnerships, media partnerships and commissioning work.

alex@thehudsonbecgroup.com

It's Nice That Newsletters

Fancy a bit of It's Nice That in your inbox? Sign up to our newsletters and we'll keep you in the loop with everything good going on in the creative world.