"Bread Art" - Single Sheet Drawings, 1912-1930

In his monograph on Wölfli, Morgenthaler writes: "His production can be divided in two big groups according to their purpose: one of which can be called Bread Art. This consists of drawings which he makes for others in order to get colored pencils, paper, tobacco, etc. . . . The other group on which he himself places a much greater value comprises his gigantic autobiography."

Almost all of these drawings were produced in the years from 1916-1930. They come in different sizes and are executed on drawing paper of good quality with colored pencils. Wölfli became famous exclusively on the basis of his "bread art" or single-sheet drawings. It was these works Morgenthaler published in his monograph in 1921, which Hans Prinzhorn knew and which Jean Dubuffet saw and acquired on his trip through Switzerland. (These works were the in Dubuffet's collection which the surrealists admired.) They were also the works exhibited in a few shows from 1945 through documenta 5 in 1972. In the publications after Morgenthaler's a number of the illustrations from the narrative texts are reproduced, but none of the authors of those texts was aware of any distinction between the illustrations and the single-page drawings. From 1916 on, these drawings bore texts on the back which Wölfli called "explanations". The "explanations" do not elucidate the drawings, but they do connect the pictures to the content of his writings. All personages, countries, events, and so on mentioned, can be found (albeit with many variations) in the narrative texts.

The single-sheet drawings are usually simplified and more schematic in their design than the freer multilevel illustrations in the texts. The figurative elements are limited to renderings of one or two persons. The frequent inclusion of wings gives them the resemblance of medieval representations of angels. The faces, ornate crowns recall tribal chieftains or extraterrestrial creatures; sometimes they wear a cross on top of their heads and suggest religious icons. They show very slight gender differentiation; one recognizes the males only by a moustache. The female figures usually extend their right arm across the left holding an object at waist level. Sometimes this object is utilitarian--a bass violin, a fan, an umbrella--but most frequently the hand is holding a bird.

The faces in the single-sheet drawings wear a kind of mask identical to those that appear on faces in the illustrations. This mask, second only to the bird, is the most idiosyncratic and therefore important form in Wölfli's work. Between 1916 and 1923 the portioning of the round opaque faces into parts covered by a mask and parts free of a mask reaches its full equilibrium, creating a volumetric sphere. Later on, in the drawings of 1926-1930, the mask gradually dissolves.

The birds increasingly become the dominant figures in the single-sheet drawings. They are the building blocks of whole compositions and eventually occupy the entire space; by the end, only the faces and the hands of the human figures are left free of them. They become so ingeniously melded that they can even be overlooked. They appear ordered in pairs, in rows, or in clusters, and their bodies are monochromatic or multicolored, frequently covered by stripes, cross-hatching, herringbone, or other patterns. With the compounding of face, wing, and bird shape, Wölfli succeeds in creating a new type of being, sometimes a human-bird, sometimes an angel-bird.

From 1908 until 1916 work on the „From the Cradle to the Grave“ and the „Geographic and Algebraic Books“ took up Wölfli's time. Morgenthaler reports that during these years, Wölfli did not respond gladly to the request to make drawings for other people: "Once in a while he gives away such a piece without asking to be paid to a person for whom he has a special liking, mostly to persons of the female gender or to children. But this does not occur too often; on the contrary, one frequently has to admonish him again and again to draw something for the benefit of others. Very often one gets the answer that he didn't have any time for it, that he had better things to do, etc."

The slowdown of work on the Books, which Wölfli had announced in the preface, called "Final Remarks" of Book 20, was probably caused not so much by the "painful illness" and the "horribly bitter suffering" he complains of as by public recognition; the demand for single-sheet drawings and in larger commissions increased after the publication of Morgenthaler's monograph. With some interruptions Wölfli was occupied from 1916 until 1921 with the decoration of two large wooden closets and two small vitrines at the Waldau Museum. The drawings are pasted on the large panels of the closets and in the smaller areas Wölfli drew directly on the wood. The museum was established in 1914 on Morgenthaler's initiative. In one of two low attic rooms above the auditorium in the new clinic objects of historical interest were amassed which had previously been used in the custodial care of the mentally ill, such as straightjackets, belts, covered bathtubs, and so on. In the other room drawings by Wölfli and by many other patients in Swiss mental institutions were stored. After Wölfli's death, all his Books were preserved inside the decorated closet, where they remained until their removal to the Adolf-Wölfli Foundation in the Museum of Fine Arts of Bern in 1973. During 1922 he worked on the four-part screen for Dr. Oscar Forel, each part 154 x 64 cm. On one side the four panels are composed of three drawings on each part, the four drawings on the other side are an example of Wölfli's ability and virtuosity in the creation of a unified large-scale composition.

Wölfli's self-assurance as an artist was demonstrated again in 1922 by his proposal of his own exhibition : a one-man show with a small catalog! Wölfli gives instructions and advises for setting the show provides financial help (needes still today – how could he know ?) : The annual excursion of the patients ended with an extensive meal, Wölfli wanted to show ten of his pictures. "And so I ask the highly honored Bären-innkeeper-family in Schüpfen, to frame each [picture] nicely and without fault and then to hang them on the walls of the ballroom. I send you these ten pictures as a voluntary gift. To cover further expenses, of course, for the carpenter and glass cutter, etcetera, and, if possible also for a gratuity for my efforts and the used material, I recommend to you to organize a collection for voluntary donations every time you have a dance; a marriage; a childs baptism; or any other kind of happy celebration. Why? That way you do not lose anything, and to some extent you would also do me a good turn. My advice is good and flawless; Believe me. But now, you should arrange it among yourselves, to buy about four or five, each, clean and fresh newspaper sheets, like this one here, in order to copy, that means, to transcribe the whole and entire text on the backside of the ten portraits, each according to their numbered order, as indicated below. This page presents the beginning or, the preface to the whole story. You should carefully photograph all ten pictures, and add these resulting though uncolored pictures to your respective explanations. Actually, you yourself could write a short final chapter about my Humble Self and, about Kirch-Dorf and the community of Schüpfen, etcetera. . . . So: have this whole story, nicely put together, printed perfectly in a printing press in Bern and, you have a rather pretty and instructive, amusing little book." („The Schüpfen Letter, 1922; unfortunately, the exhibition never took place)

In the same year, 1922, the schoolteacher Hermine Marti visited Wölfli in Waldau and became a true admirer and supporter of his art, commissioning and acquiring his works and paying generously for them. By 1930 she had a collection of forty-six works, including three pieces of furniture.

There are no texts in the narrative work dated 1923, although Wölfli made many drawings that year, especially for Hermine Marti. In 1924 and 1925 he made drawings and wrote the texts of the Album Books. There are no texts in 1926, for in that year Wölfli worked on some drawings and in particular on his largest picture, Memorandum, 3 x 1.5 m, which he executed on commission for the auditorium of the new clinic. The picture Memorandum represents a kind of compendium of Wölfli's motifs and themes, which in this large format he formulates on a grand scale with sovereign mastery and a sure feeling for the design of a mural. In 1926 he executed another large-size picture, San Salvatore, 202 x 149 cm, with an "explanation" of sixty-eight lines; it is his largest mandala composition, built up with strict orderings of birds and enclosed with a wide border of music notations.

Wölfli made his orders through the delivery man for Waldau. In 1929 he wrote: "Mr. Messer, bring me from the stationery store Kollbrunner in Bern the following colored pencils as listed here: 6. Cadmium, dark. 36. Scarlet red. 37. Saturn red 32. Crap-carmine. 47. English red. 49. Indian red. 52. Bister. 54. Burnt Umber. 46. Venetian red. 9. Orange. 14. May green. 26. Prussian blue, one piece of each, or, a total of 12 pieces. Yeah, also a whole bundle of black lead pencils, Kollbrunner No. 2, with the yellow wood. And one piece beautiful drawing paper, exactly 43 centimeter wide and 55 centimeter long."

(Elka Spoerri)