Today, Adolf Wölfli (1864–1930) ranks among the 20^th century’s most highly acclaimed artists, and his work is exhibited worldwide. Such international recognition for an orphan, a Verdingkind (indentured child labourer), a prison inmate and patient in a psychiatric institution is by no means a foregone conclusion, but is the result of an artistic oeuvre that is extraordinary, in every respect.

Wölfli was an author, composer and draughtsman pursuing his chosen ‘mission’ to reinvent life and construct a world of his own. In 1908, at the age of 44, Adolf Wölfli embarked upon his literary oeuvre, setting out to chronicle his fictional life story. In the seclusion of his cell at the Waldau psychiatric clinic, he created his own world across more than 25’000 pages, later dubbing it Skt.Adolf=Riesen=Schöpfung (St. Adolf=Giant=Creation). 

Like other voyagers of the mind (for example Jules Verne or Karl May) the artist from Bern allowed himself to be guided by atlases, travelogues and illustrated magazines. It was from such sources that he drew the details and building blocks that enabled him to construct his world. His narrative is, at its core, an account of an adventurous research expedition, leading him to distant regions of the world. These imagined locations are then described in minute detail, ‘surveyed’ and ultimately administered.

Wölfli’s writings are replete with numerous illustrations providing visual form to the fantasy, and which in turn could be interpreted as evidence for the existence of the places being described. In addition to cartographic depictions, they include landmarks and monuments that characterise and distinguish these newly discovered territories. The presentation currently on display at Kunstmuseum Bern is assembling a selection from this inventory, revealing the distinctive phenomena that Adolf Wölfli populated his universe with.

While the landmarks from all over the world render Wölfli’s own universe both magnificent and overwhelming, the monuments are frequently tributes to faithful members of the company of travellers who accompanied him both in his stories and on his journey through the world, and who had distinguished themselves in their exceptional service. In doing so, Wölfli established a culture of remembrance in his writings, while simultaneously inventing for himself a sense of family and ancestral belonging – something he, as a Verdingkind and orphan, had never personally experienced.

Hilar Stadler, Curator Adolf Wölfli Foundation

Born in 1864 in the Emmental, Wölfli grows up under deprived circumstances in and around Bern. In 1870 the father abandons the family. Wölfli and his mother become destitute and are forced to resettle in the community of Schangnau. In 1874 Wölfli’s mother dies and her youngest son grows up in degrading circumstances as an indentured child laborer in various farming families in Schangnau. Between 1880 and 1890 Wölfli finds work as farmhand, laborer and itinerant worker. In 1890 he is condemned to two years of prison for attempting to molest young girls. After being released from prison, he becomes more and more isolated. In 1895 he is sent to the Waldau clinic near Bern in order to examine his mental accountability. He is diagnosed with ‘dementia paranoides’ (schizophrenia).

In 1895, on the request of the doctors, Wölfli writes his first life story. In 1899 he begins to draw. The first drawings to be saved date from 1904 and 1905. From 1908 to 1912 Wölfli writes his fictitious autobiography From the Cradle to the Grave (3000 pages). From 1912 to 1916 Wölfli works on the Geographical and Algebraic Books (3000 pages). They describe the creation of the future St. Adolf=Giant=Creation. Around 1916 Wölfli starts his series of drawings that he offers or sells to doctors, employees, visitors and the first collectors. From 1917 to 1922 he works on the Books with Songs and Dances (7000 pages) where he celebrates and sings of his world to come. In 1921 Walter Morgenthaler publishes Adolf Wölfli, Ein Geisteskranker als Künstler (Madness and Art. The Life and Works of Adolf Wölfli, translated and publ. 1992), his groundbreaking study read by Rainer Maria Rilke and Lou Andreas-Salomé among others. From 1924 to 1928 Wölfli writes the Album Books with Dances and Marches (around 5000 pages) in which he sings further praises of his world. From 1928 to 1930 he develops the (unfinished) Funeral=March. On November 30, 1930, Wölfli dies of stomach cancer.