IN
MEMORIAM
JOHANN HAUSER (1926-1996)
On January 7, 1996, Johann Hauser died suddenly
and totally unexpectedly.
At first, none of us could believe it.
To my knowledge, Johann Hauser was the first artist who - in spite of spending most of his life as a patient in a psychiatric hospital - attained international status while still alive. In 1979, he had his first major one-man show at the municipal gallery in Munich's Lenbachhaus. In the very same year he flew to London where he participated in the show 'Outsiders'. While in London he met Victor Musgrave, Roger Cardinal and Monika Kinley. In 1980, he had another one-man exhibition at the Kunsthalle Koln in Cologne and together with Oswald Tschirtner he was featured in a two-man show at Vienna's Museum of Modern Art.
Hauser's renown in the world of fine arts is based on these exhibitions but they also led to the fact that the then director of our institution in Gugging, Dr Lois Marksteiner, dedicated a special separate pavilion to our artists, an action amply justified by their growing outside success.
I myself have personally known Johann Hauser since 1949 - the time he came from the institution in Mauer to our psychiatric hospital. Towards the end of the fifties Johann Hauser made his first drawings. In the twenty years from 1966 to 1986 I was in closest personal contact with the artist. During that time...
