iFundación MAPFRE – Sala RecoletosRecoletos
The Other Face of the Avant-Garde
Traces how Hans Prinzhorn's collection of psychiatric-patient artwork influenced Expressionist, Dadaist and Surrealist artists, and its later revival as Art Brut by Jean Dubuffet.
More in Madrid
The museum's own image for this show is a nocturnal riverside landscape in oil, painted between 1908 and 1919 by Else Blankenhorn. She was a patient at Heidelberg's psychiatric clinic, and the picture comes from the collection the doctor Hans Prinzhorn made into his 1922 book Expressions of Madness.
Curator Pilar Soler Montes hangs Prinzhorn Collection works next to avant-garde artists such as Emil Nolde, Kurt Schwitters, George Grosz and Max Ernst. Lenders include Heidelberg, the Collection de l'Art Brut in Lausanne, the Brücke Museum, the Thyssen and the Reina Sofía. The show also covers how the Nazis used the same material in their campaign against "degenerate art", and how Jean Dubuffet revived it after the war as Art Brut.
Entry is €5, €3 reduced, and free on Mondays from 14:00 to 20:00. The audio guide is included in Spanish and English via QR code, and headphones cost €1. Guided tours last 45 minutes, cost €7 and run in Spanish on Tuesdays at 11:30 and 16:30.
Editor's pick
Art made by psychiatric patients and collected by the Heidelberg psychiatrist Hans Prinzhorn, set against the Expressionists, Dadaists and Surrealists who borrowed from it. The story ends with Jean Dubuffet turning that work into Art Brut.
Look for
Else Blankenhorn, Nocturnal Riverside Landscape
An oil painting of a river at night, made between 1908 and 1919 by a Heidelberg patient.
Gabriele Urbach, Portrait
A portrait worked in embroidery on canvas rather than painted.
Karl Brendel, Doctor at the Bedside of a Sick Man
A carved wooden figure group of a doctor beside a patient's bed.
George Grosz, Twilight, 1922
A watercolour and ink work hung among the avant-garde side of the argument.
Jean Dubuffet, Joy of Living, 1949
An oil on burlap from the artist who built the Art Brut idea on Prinzhorn's book.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Nerding Out
Skip if
You want an English guided tour: the 45-minute tours run in Spanish only.
Also at Fundación MAPFRE – Sala Recoletos
On now nearby
Nearby
Image credits
9
- The Other Face of the Avant-GardeCourtesy of Fundación MAPFRE – Sala Recoletos
- Fueron tejidos. Teresa LancetaCourtesy of Museo Arqueológico Nacional
- Vitrina CERO: Back to Childhood — Prehistory and Antiquity© Esperanza Martín para el Museo Nacional y Centro de Investigación de Altamira, Santillana del Mar (Cantabria)
- La vida en la frontera. Finds from the Castle of Monreal de ArizaCourtesy of Museo Arqueológico Nacional
- Fundación MAPFRE – Sala RecoletosBeautyriver1010, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Museo Arqueológico NacionalCoralma*, via Wikimedia Commons, CC0
- Casa de AméricaCarlos Delgado (Kadellar), CC BY-SA 3.0
- Museo NavalFernando, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Museo Nacional de Artes DecorativasLuis García (Zaqarbal), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0