Beyond Reason

First broadcast – 24/11/26 BBC Radio 4

The Prinzhorn Collection of artworks by patients in German asylums changed the history of art forever.

Art historian and psychiatrist Hans Prinzhorn died in 1933 but his collection of paintings by unknown psychiatric patients is still held at Heidelberg University Hospital. Prinzhorn’s book, «Artistry of the Mentally Ill», rapidly became “the Bible of the Surrealists” and was heavily influential in the works of artists and writers like Paul Klee, Max Ernst, and André Breton, as well as Abstract Expressionists in the US.

The collection also has a darker past, forming part of the Nazi touring exhibition on “Degenerate Art” which exploited these works by mentally ill artists to imply the pathological nature of Modern art.

The continued influence of Prinzhorn’s book after the Second World War was largely due to the efforts of Jean Dubuffet, founder of the Art Brut Company which heralded the revolution in Outsider Art.

Writer and artist Hattie Naylor traces the origins of the collection, its survival and influence, and the legacy it has left, reflecting on the perennial question: who can make art?

Presented by Hattie Naylor
Sound mix by Steve Bond
Executive Producer, Sara Davies
Produced, recorded and edited by Nicolas Jackson

With special thanks to
Sammlung Prinzhorn – Dr Thomas Röske, Friederike Rauch, Dr Ingrid von Beyme, Claudia Paul – Charlie English, Andrew Kötting, Eden Kötting, Colin Rhodes, Camille Houzé, Josephine Burton, Lennie Varvarides, Dyspla, Becki Lane.

Music courtesy of Jem Finer, Claudia Barton, David Bloor, Andrew Kötting

Image: August Natterer, “My Eyes at the Time of the Apparitions”, Inv. No. 166 © Prinzhorn Collection, Heidelberg University Hospital.

An Afonica production for BBC Radio 4