OUR ARTISTS

ACM
b 1951 (France)
Artist who builds intense architectural palaces from re-constituted electronic, radiophonic and typewriter components.
Morton Bartlett
1909-1992 (America)
Amateur sculptor and photographer who created, fashioned and photographed his secret family of pre-teenage mannequins.
Forrest Bess
1911-1977 (America)
Hermaphrodite, hermit and fisherman whose abstract paintings of mystical symbols revealed medical and psychological truths.
Aaron Birnbaum
1895-1988 (Ukraine)
4’9” Brooklyn dress manufacturer who started painting in his 70’s and whose career took off at his 100th birthday party.
Calvin & Ruby Black
1903/15-1972/82 (America)
Husband and wife creators of Possum Trot in the Mojave Desert, an environment featuring hundreds of figures made from recycled materials.
Emery Blagdon
1907-1986 (America)
Hobo heir to a Nebraska farm who created a Healing Machine of wirework mobiles to channel the earth’s currents for immortality.
Pearl Blauvelt
1893–1987 (America)
Pennsylvania amateur artist whose delicate pencil drawings catalogued the clothes, events and urban environment of her daily life.
Rev William Blayney
1918-1985 (America)
Born-again Pentecostal lay preacher whose garish fire and brimstone tablets illustrated his prophetic biblical sermons.
Hawkins Bolden
1914-2005 (America)
Blind Southern sculptor who created his protective scarecrows in a tiny urban home, sandwiched in between a car wash and a brick wall.
Ilija Bašičević Bosilj
1895–1972 (Serbia)
Peasant farmer championed by his son, whose fantastical creations were a reaction against the wave of 60’s Croatian naïve art.
Eugene von Bruenchenheim
1910–1983 (America)
Visionary artist who created feathery paintings, sculptures of chicken bones and erotic photos of his wife and muse Marie.
Raimundo Camilo
b 19XX (xxxxxxxxxx)
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Tomislav Sava Čarapić
b 1939 (Yugoslavia)
Soldier and beautician whose hallucinations led to a volume of work using found materials and IBM computer keyboards.
James Castle
1900–1977 (America)
Unable to read, write, hear or sign, Castle created his silent world in drawings, albums and constructions of soot, spit and string.
Nek Chand
b 1924 (India)
Indian roads worker who recycled the remains of his village to create a kingdom of figures to rival the linear modernist city of Chandigarh.
Felipe Jesus Consalvos
1891-1960 (Cuba)
Cigar worker and political humorist whose opus was discovered in a garage sale and includes collaged plywood, furniture and instruments.
Ronald Cooper
b 1931 (America)
Devout self-taught carver who whittles the snakes of his nightmares and the eternal battle between Jesus and the Devil.
Aloïse Corbaz
1886-1964 (Prussia)
Swiss governess whose imagined affair with Kaiser Wilhelm II led to an erotic schizophrenic oeuvre of drawings, collage and murals.
Fleury-Joseph Crépin
1875-1948 (France)
Well-digger, plumber, miner and spiritualist who received a calling to paint three hundred temples to bring about the end of WW2.
Henry Darger
1892-1973 (America)
Devout hermit and janitor whose panoramic illustrations for a self-penned fairytale fictionalised his own troubled childhood.
William Dawson
1901-1990 (America)
Self-taught whittler of wood known for using discarded table legs to create his totems and adding wigs to his figurines and heads.
Charles August Albert
AA Dellschau
1830 – 1923 (Prussia)
Texan butcher whose thirteen books of impossible flying machines were created after a chance UFO sighting in 1899.
Hiroyuki Doi
b 1946 (Japan)
Practicing commercial chef who took to art after the death of his brother and expresses the cosmos through tiny circles.
Sam Doyle
1906-1985 (America)
Store clerk and laundry worker whose paintings on tin and wood depict the local populus of St Helena Island, who were descendants of South Carolina’s slaves.
Louis Estape
b. 1938 (Honduras)
Creative Growth artist with developmental disabilities whose art reflects his community, Honduran heritage and relationship with God.
Guo Fengyi
1942-2010 (China)
Factory worker whose practice of Qigon have led her to express her visions of bodily energies on long rice paper scrolls.
Rev Howard Finster
1916-2001 (America)
Paradise Garden superstar and preacher whose finger called on him to paint the word of God and whose works eventually numbered tens of thousands.
Leonhard Fink
b 1982 (Austria)
Younger Gugging artist whose works include architecture, female forms, impossible monsters and motorbikes, all executed in thick black pencil.
Giovanni Galli
b 19XX (xxxxxxxxxx)
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Victor Joseph Gatto
1893–1965 (America)
Confrontational plumber, boxer and seaman, whose vivid obsessional oeuvre included animal and alien lansdcapes and biblical narratives.
Willem van Genk
1927-2005 (Netherlands)
Dutch artist obsessed by cities, transport & travel, who locked himself in leather coats to protect himself from his own urges.
Madge Gill
1884–1961 (Britain)
East End mediumistic artist whose drawings, cards and tapestries found under her bed revealed her powerful spirit guide Myrninerest.
Joaqim Vincens Gironella
1911–1997 (Spain)
Poet, dramatist and novelist born to a family of cork makers, whose dense cork sculptures caught the eye of one-time wine merchant, Jean Dubuffet.
Martha Grünenwaldt
b 1910 (Belgium)
Violinist who took up her grandchildren’s colouring pencils and covered the backs of posters and wallpaper with dense landscapes of flowers and faces.
Johann Hauser
1926-1996 (Slovakia)
Illiterate, autistic and schizophrenic, Hauser’s astonishing world of icons, shapes and figures have made him the most celebrated of all Gugging artists.
William Hawkins
1895-1990 (America)
Kentucky-born hunter, truck driver, scrap merchant and pimp, 5’4” Hawkins created giant canvases of thick house paint and collage.
Hector Hippolyte
1894–1948 (Haiti)
House painter and voodoo priest collected by André Breton who created his works with chicken feathers and furniture enamel spread by his own fingers.
Morris Hirshfield
1872-1946 (Ukraine)
East Coast slipper manufacturer who turned to painting in his 70’s and was honoured with a one-man show at MoMA in 1943.
Josef Hofer
b 1945 (Germany)
Deaf artist whose bold orange and yellow linear compositions form a maze around male forms, football players and loved objects.
Rev Jesse Howard
1885–1983 (America)
Retired farmer whose biblical and political rants formed hand-painted signs and banners plastered across his home and yard.
Rev JL Hunter
1905-1999 (America)
Senior Pastor of True Light Baptist Church in Dallas, whose carvings from lumber scraps were a sideline to his passionate daily preaching.
Alfred Jensen
1903–1981 (Guatemala)
Formally trained artist and pal of Rothko, whose world travels led to the creation of a cosmic numerological universe of colour.
Willie Jinks
b. 1921 (America)
Son of a sharecropper whose lifetime at the Department of Sanitation helped him salvage the materials he used to create his dynamic works.
Rev Anderson Johnson
1915–1998 (America)
Street preacher who converted his home into a Faith Mission and fashioned a congregation of painted faces and visionary images.
Shields Langdon SL Jones
1901–1997 (America)
Appalachian carpenter, fiddle player and railway worker who carved maple, walnut and poplar to portray friends, family and dreams.
Franz Kernbeis
b 1935 (Austria)
Inventor of the Gugging currency Blug (50€), Kernbeis uses only pencil to create his idiosyncratic world of buildings and figures.
Johann Korec
1937–2008 (Austria)
Text combined with watercolour and pen illustrate the intimate, dramatic and sexual episodes from the artist’s life and imaginings.
Hans Krüsi
1920–1995 (Switzerland)
Orphaned farmhand, labourer and flower seller whose prolific slapdash oeuvre reflected the Appenzell region of his birth.
James Billie JB Lemming
c 1920–1988 (America)
Inspired by Howard Finster, Lemming converted his anonymous log cabin with red, white and blue targets to represent electricity.
Augustin Lesage
1876–1954 (France)
Miner guided by voices to paint and whose pointillistic style was littered with mystical references and hidden sexual meaning.
Georges Liautaud
1899-1991 (Haiti)
Blacksmith and sculptor of grave markers, who fashioned discarded oil barrels into silhouettes of voodoo deities and possessed spirits.
Aleksander Pavlovich Lobanov
1924–2003 (Russia)
Deaf mute who created a secret world of photographs and drawn self-portraits, depicting himself as a marksman and hero of the revolution.
Dwight Mackintosh
1906–1999 (America)
Celebrated artist who in his 70’s began an oeuvre of figures, buildings and vehicles, surrounded by lyrical and illegible text.
William F Mangels
1866–1958 (Germany)
Pioneering carousel manufacturer and visionary whose Coney Island designs spanned amusement parks around the globe.
Kunizo Matsumoto
b 1962 (Japan)
Text obsessive who fills surfaces, from notebooks to leaflets to calendars, with overlapping calligraphy of real and imagined characters.
Justin McCarthy
1892–1977 (America
Wealthy law student whose liberated oils and drawings portrayed movie stars, ice skaters, plantlife and beasts in glorious colours.
Malcolm McKesson
1909–1999 (America)
Affluent Harvard graduate whose magnum opus was an auto-biographical erotic novella illustrated by intense ballpoint sketches.
Dan Miller
b 1961 (America)
Autistic Creative Growth artist whose dense weaves of numbers and words have been shown at Gavin Brown, White Columns and MoMA.
George Thaxton GT Miller
1900-1988 (America)
Burly Southern entrepreneur and eccentric who took on the Klu Klux Klan, local government and anyone else who stood in the way of profit.
Reuben Aaron RA Miller
1912–2006 (America)
Celebrated farmer, cotton mill worker and minister who decorated the landscape of his Windy Hill home with whirligigs and felt-tip cutouts.
Edmund Monsiel
1897–1962 (Poland)
Shopkeeper and artist who began his oeuvre while in hiding during WW2, filling small sheets of paper with obsessive Catholic imagery.
Sister Gertrude Morgan
1900–1980 (America)
Self-proclaimed Bride of Christ whose artworks and music were intended to help spread the word at her New Orleans Faith Mission.
Kim Noble
b 1965 (Britain)
Contemporary artist with DID whose many personalities include 12 painters, each with their own individual style, content, theme and background.
Donald Pass
b 1930 (Britain)
After a powerful vision, professional painter Pass became a teacher to devote his life to the depiction of Christ’s Resurrection.
Rev Benjamin Franklin BF Perkins
1904–1993 (America)
Ex US Marine, Brother Perkins received a calling to build his own church and adorn it in patriotic red, white and blue signage.
Lubos Plny
b 1961 (Czech Republic
Electrician, artist, photographer and body obsessive whose re-interpretations of his own anatomy take form in detailed drawings.
Josef Karl Rädler
1884–1917 (Bohemia)
Austrian ceramicist committed to a sanatorium where he recorded the characters and events of his daily life in delicate watercolours.
Martín Ramírez
1885–1963 (Mexico)
Renowned institutionalised artist whose iconic drawings and collages reflected the conflict of the modern world on daily life and travel.
Emile Ratier
1894–1984 (France)
Farmer and handyman unrestricted by blindness who carved windmills, vehicles, fairgoundfairground rides and giant replicas of the Eiffel Tower.
William Carlton WC Rice
1930–2004 (America)
Rice was called upon to save the world from sinful living, which he did in the thousands of signs and crosses across his Miracle Garden.
Heinrich Riesenbauer
b 1938 (Austria)
Precise groupings of objects populate Riesenbauer’s colourful artwork, reflecting his own organised personality.
Prophet Royal Robertson
1936-1997 (America)
Sign painter whose drawings and decorated environment were dedicated either to visions of the future or curses against his promiscuous ex-wife.
Judith Scott
1943-2005 (America)
Twin with Down's Syndrome whose only language was an astonishing assembly of sculptures bound by layers of wool, yarn and thread.
William Scott
b. 1964 (America)
Artist and Good Person who portrays himself and his family as the Skyline Friendly Organisation in a re-developed Praise Frisco.
Sava Sekulić
1902–1989 (Croatia)
Labourer, factory worker and bricklayer who taught himself how to read, write and paint and created a legacy the authorities could not take away from him.
Drossos P Skylass
1912–1973 (Greece)
Accountant who sought commissions for his highly stylised portraits at extortionate prices and only completed 35 works in his lifetime.
Gerone Wayne Spruill
b 1973
Musician and Creative Growth artist aka DJ Disco Duck who has created his own imaginary disco universe which never ceases to expand.
Ann Stokes
b 1922 (Britain)
Painter, potter and dancer, whose creations include animals, tableware and trees of birds, inspired by the grace of classical ballet.
Harald Stoffers
b 1961 (Germany)
Prolific and industrious, Stoffers is a letter writer extraordinaire whose torn fragments and musical staves are always for his mother.
Katsuhiro Terao
b 1960 (Japan)
Metal welder from a construction family whose collage and scratchboard etchings are filled with abstracted beams, girders and architecture.
David Tibet
b 1960 (Malaysia)
British poet, musician and artist, who has collaborated with Psychic TV and 23 Skidoo and who studies the apocalypse and mysticism.
Miroslav Tichý
b 1926 (Czechoslovakia)
Trained at Prague Academy of Arts, Tichý quit fine art for a life covertly photographing local women with his hand-made cameras.
Mose Tolliver
b 19XX (xxxxxxxxxx)
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Oswald Tschirtner
1920–2009 (Austria)
One of Gugging’s most prolific artists, Tschirtner’s distinctive line found form in elongated figures, precious objects and tiny moments, revealing his sense of humour and keen observational eye.
Bill Traylor
1854–1949 (America)
Sidewalk artist born into slavery who at 83 started to paint the people, animals and exciting events of his colourful life.
Karl Vondal
b. 1953 (Austria)
Gugging artist whose erotic imaginings form the basis of a beautiful and delicate oeuvre of drawings filled with evocative text.
Louis Wain
1860–1939 (Britain)
English commercial artist whose famous drawings of mischievous cats abstracted as his behaviour grew erratic with the onset of schizophrenia.
August Walla
1936–2001 (Austria)
Renowned Gugging artist whose idiosyncratic body of work included symbols, text and full frontal figures on canvases, building and trees.
Alfred Wallis
1855–1942 (Britain)
Cornish fisherman whose private maritime imagery reflected a life on the open wave, later celebrated by painter Ben Nicholson.
Myrtice West
b 1923 (America)
Self-taught visionary who received a calling to paint the Books of Revelations and Ezekiel after the tragic murder of her daughter.
George Widener
b 1962 (America)
Contemporary Southern artist with exceptional memory and mathematical skills, whose inner world is revealed on discarded paper napkins.
George Williams
b 1911
Self-taught carver who sold his figures for a dollar a piece then skipped town, convinced buyers would come after him for overcharging.
Scottie Wilson
1891-1972 (Britain)
Born Louis Freeman, Wilson’s doodles of the battle between Greedies and Evils were embraced by the Surrealists and became his life’s work.
Clarence & Grace Woolsey
1929-1987/92 (America)
Iowa farmhands who created the World's Largest Pioneer Caparena from bottlecaps moulded into human, alien and architectural forms.
Anna Zemánková
1908-1986 (Czechoslovakia)
Dental technician whose embroidered botanical drawings were guided by forces beyond her understanding or control.
Carlo Zinelli
1916–1974 (Italy)
Italian butcher and soldier whose battle scars found form in 3000 works depicting bullet ridden creatures and mystic texts.