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Johann Hauser
1926 – 1996

1926 – 1996

Image: Johann Hauser, portrait from Art/Brut Center, Gugging.

 
 

Johann Hauser, a founder member of the Haus der Künstler in Gugging, Austria, became one of its most successful artists. He began to draw in the 1950s in response to encouragement from his psychiatrist, Dr Leo Navratil, and developed his characteristic style. His powerful use of form and colour belie the fact that his favoured medium was coloured pencil. Drawing with a fierce intensity, he created an overall painterly effect. The intense pressure he applied left indents in the paper and occasionally tore it, but at other times his work was quiet and restrained, featuring just one object or form. 

 

Above: Johann Hauser, Woman, 1966, Collection de L'Art Brut, Lausanne.

Navratil argued that this difference resulted from contrasts between Hauser’s manic and depressive phases and that the dramatic mood changes he experienced transferred onto his work. Hauser’s favourite themes were female figures, sexualised by emphasising their femininity and physical features. These intense drawings with their strong contrasts in tone and heavy pencil work are among his most powerful. In other moods he chose simple visual motifs such as airplanes, rockets, and a blue star, which became the emblem of the Haus der Künstler. Hauser could only write his name, and his large signature became an important part of his compositions.

Below: Johann Hauser, Woman, 1982, private collection.

 
 
 
 
 
 

Raw Vision 89 has just been printed and is about to be sent out to subscribers (see features below).

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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An interview with the director of the Collection de l’Art Brut.

 
 

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Secret art discovered, four years after the artist’s death.

 
 

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RAW STUDIOS

Arts Project Australia in Melbourne.