Description

This is a very good hardcover copy in the original illustrated boards. Completely clean inside and out. Slight wrinkle to last few pages lower edges. Text in English. This catalog was prepared for the exhibition at the MFA in 1976. Organized by Spoerri and a team of scholars including Harald Szeemann, Markus Ratz, Peter Bichsel, among others. Illustrated in black & white throughout + 8 color plates. "Mrs. Spoerri, who sometimes jokingly referred to herself as 'Mrs. Wˆlfli,' was a legend in the world of outsider art. She spent more than 20 years deciphering, transcribing, translating and indexing the often densely interwoven writing, iconography and musical scores of Wˆlfli, a prolific schizophrenic Swiss laborer. Consigned to Waldau, a psychiatric hospital in Bern, from the age of 30 to his death at 66 in 1930, Wˆlfli created thousands of drawings and 45 large illustrated books containing a total of nearly 25,000 pages. He was known in Switzerland during his lifetime but subsequently slipped into near oblivion. Mrs. Spoerri came to Wˆlfli's work through her husband, Theodor, a psychiatrist at Waldau who, at the invitation of the Swiss curator Harald Szeemann, helped reintroduce Wˆlfli's work to the art world at Documenta 5 in 1972. But Theodor, a cousin of the artist Daniel Spoerri, died in 1973, and Mrs. Spoerri became the chief guardian and interpreter of Wˆlfli's art". (from Spoerri's obituary, in the Times, written by Roberta Smith). Bibliography. Exhibition history. Documents. Reviews. 11" high X 8" wide, 123 pages. This book will be securely wrapped and packed in a sturdy box and sent with tracking.