Hans Prinzhorn

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Hans Prinzhorn as high school graduate (1904)

Hans Prinzhorn (born June 8, 1886 in Hemer , Westphalia , † June 14, 1933 in Munich ) was a German psychiatrist and art historian . Together with the French Paul Meunier alias Marcel Réja and the Swiss Walter Morgenthaler, he is one of the pioneers in the scientific study of sculptures of the mentally ill . The Prinzhorn Collection is named after him.

education

Prinzhorn went to the Märkisches Realgymnasium in Iserlohn and studied art history and philosophy at the universities of Tübingen , Leipzig and Munich , where he received his doctorate in 1908 .

After completing his first degree, Prinzhorn went to England . He had the desire to become a singer and wanted to complete a vocal training in England. During the First World War, Prinzhorn assisted a military surgeon. He then studied in Freiburg / Brsg. and Strasbourg medicine. He received his doctorate in medicine in Heidelberg in 1919.

Creation of the collection and first book publication

Letter from the psychiatric patient Emma Hauck 1909, cited by Prinzhorn as an example of “scribbles”, Prinzhorn Collection
From the Prinzhorn Collection: August Natterer (Neter): "Hexenkopf" (front and back), approx. 1915

In 1919, Hans Prinzhorn became Karl Wilmanns' assistant at the Heidelberg University Psychiatric Clinic . His job there was to look after a collection of sculptures by the mentally ill that had been created by Emil Kraepelin . When Prinzhorn left the Heidelberg University Clinic in 1921, his archives comprised more than 5000 paintings, created by ≈450 patients at the Heidelberg University Clinic, the so-called cases in medical terminology .

In 1922, Prinzhorn published his first and most influential work, the book Bildnerei der Geisteskranken , richly illustrated with images from the collection of patients found to be mentally ill. While Prinzhorn's psychiatric colleagues reacted with reserve to his published work, art lovers, art experts and psychologists were deeply impressed by the documented patient work. The book, in which the author dealt with the border areas of artistically individual forms of expressivity and the design features of the mentally ill, was one of the first attempts to analyze their creations. Even if Prinzhorn abstains from an aesthetic assessment of the patient's work and avoids the term art and instead speaks of sculpture, he treats the works he publishes with respect.

Subsequent years

Prinzhorn then worked for a short time at sanatoriums in Zurich ("Burghölzli", the psychiatric clinic of the University of Zurich ), Dresden and Wiesbaden . From 1925 he ran a psychotherapeutic practice as a neurologist in Frankfurt am Main . Prinzhorn wrote other books that could not achieve the success of his first work. His hope of getting a permanent job at a university was not fulfilled.

From 1927 to 1930 he gave the series Das Weltbild. Books of Living Knowledge out. It was published by Müller & Kiepenheuer, Potsdam and Orell Füssli , Zurich. The series was originally supposed to appear monthly from April 1928, but there was an interruption in early 1929, and in 1930 the series was discontinued with the last issue 14.

Disillusioned by his professional unsuccessfulness and the failure of three marriages, Prinzhorn moved to an aunt in Munich. He lived in seclusion from occasional lectures and the writing of texts. In the last years of his life, Prinzhorn was politically close to Mussolini's Italian fascism and National Socialism . Between 1930 and 1932 he published a series of articles on National Socialism . In 1931 he was a visiting professor in Los Angeles.

In 1933, Prinzhorn died of typhus in Munich .

His circle of friends included the psychologist and graphologist Ludwig Klages , whose philosophy was based on Mirbach Prinzhorn's philosophy of life , as well as Thomas Mann and Gerhart Hauptmann .

Archiving of the paintings after the death of Prinzhorn Feme-Show Degenerate Art

Soon after the death of the psychiatrist and art historian Hans Prinzhorn, the Prinzhorn Collection with drawings, paintings and sculptural works by the mentally ill was stowed away in an attic at Heidelberg University. In 1937, some works from the collection were presented in a National Socialist propaganda exhibition, the Feme-Show Degenerate Art , in Munich and misused for comparison with works by artists of the classical modern era in order to defame works of German Expressionism in comparison.

The Prinzhorn Museum at Heidelberg University

The former lecture hall building of the Altklinikum Bergheim is now dedicated to the Prinzhorn research collection as a museum

From 1973 the material collected by Hans Prinzhorn was recorded and cataloged under the direction of Inge Jádi , in 1980 the first exhibits were presented to the public. In 2001, the Prinzhorn Collection was given its own museum at Heidelberg University Hospital , the Prinzhorn Collection Museum , Heidelberg Psychiatric University Hospital, Vossstraße 2, in a converted former lecture hall. Here the collection continues to serve epistemological, scientific research.

Regularly changing exhibitions take place here, which are introduced by clinicians or art historians at the opening ceremonies, with scientifically profound discussions on the respective topic.

The Marburger Kunstverein organized in 2009 an exhibition under the motto " madness! Works from Lebenshilfe and the Prinzhorn Collection from Heidelberg ”. Several of the mentally handicapped active artists whose work was shown in this exhibition were personally present at the vernissage.

The Hans Prinzhorn Medal has been awarded annually since 1965 by the German-speaking Society for Art and Psychopathology of Expression . The prize winners include Leo Navratil , Alfred Hrdlicka , Hans Küng and Lothar-Günther Buchheim , among others .

Naming in honor of Hans Prinzhorn

The birthplace of the art historian and psychiatrist Hans Prinzhorn in Hemer

In the hometown of Hemer of Hans Prinzhorn, the municipal secondary school and the local specialist clinic for psychiatry and psychotherapy are named after him, a clinic for differentiated treatment tasks in compulsory and full care. The clinic is run by the Regional Association of Westphalia-Lippe . The clinic is also an institution for basic, advanced and advanced training. In the Felsenmeermuseum of the Bürger- und Heimatverein there is a Prinzhorn archive largely stocked with copies . The literary scholar Yukio Kotani , who was influenced by Ludwig Klages , campaigned for Prinzhorn's work to become known in Japan.

See also

literature

Movie

  • Christian Beetz (director): Between madness and art. The Prinzhorn Collection. D, 2007, 75 min. Adolf Grimme Prize 2008

Editing for the stage

  • Carlos Cortizo : Order through disturbance - disturbance through order. Dance piece inspired by the artists and art of the Prinzhorn Collection Nuremberg 2009

Web links

Wikiversity: Prinzhorn Hans: Die Bildnerei der Mental Ill (1929)  - course materials

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Prinzhorn: Bildnerei the mentally ill. 7th edition. Springer, Heidelberg 2011.
  2. ^ Roland Jaeger: The series ›Das Weltbild‹ (1927 to 1930), edited by Hans Prinzhorn . In: From the second-hand bookshop . NF 16, no. 1 , 2018, p. 2-17 .
  3. ^ Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 467.
  4. ↑ Gerhard Roth: Foreword to Hans Prinzhorn-Bildnerei the mentally ill. In: Hans Prinzhorn: Bildnerei der mentally ill. 5th edition. Springer, Vienna / New York 1994, p. IV.
  5. ↑ Werner Mirbach
  6. ↑ Volker Roelcke : Prinzhorn, Hans. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 1184.
  7. ↑ Found something for your life , accessed April 1, 2017
  8. ↑ See the detailed literature list for the article on the discussion page
  9. ↑ Yukio Kotani: What does Hans Prinzhorn encourage me to do? Personality and open-mindedness. In: Hestia. Yearbook of the Klages Gesellschaft 1986/87, ISBN 3-416-02013-8 , pp. 80-89.
  10. ^ "Adolf Grimme Prize 2008" and Beetz homepage for the film
  11. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from January 11, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.i-camp-muenchen.de
personal data
SURNAME Prinzhorn, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German psychiatrist and art historian
DATE OF BIRTH June 8, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Hemer , Westphalia
DATE OF DEATH June 14, 1933
Place of death Munich