Johann Hauser Austrian nationality Born in Bratislava, Slovakia, on November 30th, 1926 Dies in Gugging on January 7th, 1996

Johann is an undesired child. He never meets his father who dies soon after his birth. He is illiterate (his mother tongue is German). He can only write his name and cannot count. He spends two years in a school for retarded children. At the age of seventeen, he is hospitalized for mental problems. He weighs hundred pounds and measures about five feet. In 1947, he is transferred to the mental hospital of Gugging, where he is diagnosed as schizophrenic with mood disorders. Strangely enough, it is at Gugging that he grows to a man's average height. He is given farming work and then encouraged to draw by Dr. Navratil. He uses mostly colored pencils. He saturates his paper with them, playing with colors in order to create a bright and flamboyant combination. Figures of women are his favorite subject: a woman fighter whose breasts are weapons, warriors, explosive women, erotic women, with sensual lips and gaping genitals.

He also likes airplanes, helicopters and objects from everyday life. His large signature becomes an important part of the composition.

Dr Navratil has observed that Hauser's drawings evolve with his mental state: details change, as does the size of his signature, depending on the psychotic phase he is going through. In his manic phases he tends to magnify, enlarge, multiply, accentuate and beautify; in his depressive state he will reduce, darken, go towards abstraction. Johann Hauser's work is considered as one of the most important ones of Art Brut.

SEE ALSO: Publications de la Collection de l'Art Brut, fascicule 12, Gugging, Lausanne, 1983. NAVRATIL (Leo). Gugging 1946-1986, Brandstätter, Vienna, 1997.

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