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August Walla please click image to enlarge |
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artist: August Walla |
artist: August Walla |
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August
Walla (Austria, 1936-2000) August Walla was born in Klosterneuburg, Austria in 1936. His mother Aloisa was forty and single, and he was her first and only child. His mother worked so his grandmother took care of him. Sadly, she died while caring for him when he was six years old. At Primary school it was discovered that Walla had severe learning difficulties and he was placed in residential care at a special school. He returned to his mother’s home in 1945, but continued attending the special school until he was sixteen. A year later, he was first admitted to a psychiatric clinic, and returned repeatedly, still living with his mother when he wasn’t hospitalized. In 1983 both Walla and his elderly mother, whose memory was deteriorating, were confined indefinitely in the Gugging hospital. She died there in 1991. Walla became a member of the Gugging house of artists in 1983. August Walla created an extensive body of work including drawings, prints, photographs, and paintings. He used deeply rich and symbolic imagery to create a world exploring personal, political, cultural, and religious issues. It has been said that Walla was the most versatile of the Gugging artists. He wrote and painted on every surface inside and outside of the Gugging house of artists--walls, doors, cupboards and trees. His mental world was strongly polarized into opposites such as good and evil, male and female, and so on. Since the early 70’s Walla’s work has been exhibited at venues worldwide, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Setagaya Art Museum, Tokyo, the Museum of Modern Art in Vienna, and the Neues Museum Weserburg, Bremen. In 2000 his art was included in “ABCD: a Collection of Art Brut” at the Museum of American Folk Art in New York and at the Chicago Cultural Center in Chicago. |
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Judy A Saslow GalleryOutsider Art - Contemporary Art - Folk Art |
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