Galerie
Psychiatriezentrum Appenzell Ausserrhoden
Sammlung Herisau, Kantonsbibliothek Appenzell Ausserrhoden
The Appenzell-Ausserrhodische Heil- und Pflegeanstalt opened at Krombach in Herisau in 1908. It was considered a model version of a pavilion institution and enjoyed a reputation far beyond the boundaries of the canton. Hermann Rorschach (1884–1922) was head physician in Herisau from 1915 to 1922. A friend of Walter Morgenthaler’s (1882–1965), he encouraged patients to engage in creative work and collected their drawings. He engaged in regular correspondence with Hans Prinzhorn (1886–1933) and sent works by the patients Ulrich Engler and Jakob Adolf Guggenbühl to Heidelberg. Extensive series of works by these artists can also be found in the Sammlung Herisau. When the wards were renovated in the 1980s, the attics and cellars were cleared and many works by patients were discarded, sold at bazaars, or lost, according to information provided by long-term employees. In 1979, the occupational therapist Irene Wittau discovered the oeuvre of Gertrud Schwyzer in the attic (1896–1970). Schwyzer had begun art school training in Munich in 1924. She was brought to the Heil und Pflegeanstalt Herisau in 1927. Here she created around 670 drawings using pencil, colored pencils, and watercolors and filled 45 sketchbooks with a total of over 4,100 drawings, paintings, and poems. A detailed inventory of her oeuvre was created by the asylum’s chaplain Albert Scherrer (b. 1939). The works from the Psychiatriezentrum Appenzell Ausserrhoden (PZA) were transferred to the Kantonsbibliothek Appenzell Ausserrhoden in Trogen in 2017. Gertrud Schwyzer’s oeuvre can also be viewed online.
Exhibitions
2018-2019 “Extraordinaire! Unbekannte Werke aus psychiatrischen Einrichtungen in der Schweiz um 1900/Extraordinairy! Unknown Works from Psychiatric Institutions in Switzerland around 1900“, Sammlung Prinzhorn, Heidelberg, Kunstmuseum Thun, LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz (Catalogue d/e)
2012 “Begegnungen. Hans Brühlmann, Gertrud Schwyzer, Julius Süss, Günther Uecker“. Jagfeld, Monika (eds.), Museum im Lagerhaus St. Gallen, 29.11.2011-11.3.2012 (Catalogue)
2007 Paul Schlotterbeck, Museum im Lagerhaus St.Gallen 2007, Bibliothek Herisau 2008
1992 Ilona Ruegg/Gertrud Schwyzer: Die echte Breite, Helmhaus Zürich 1992, (Catalogue)
References
www.aleph.sg.ch, Nachlass Gertrud Schwyzer
Ankele, Monika, Alltag und Aneignung in Psychiatrien um 1900: Selbstzeugnisse von Frauen aus der Sammlung Prinzhorn. Wien 2009
Brand-Claussen, Bettina, Michely, Viola (eds.), Irre ist weiblich. Künstlerische Interventionen von Frauen in der Psychiatrie um 1900. Sammlung Prinzhorn. Heidelberg 2004
Koller, Arnold, Hinrichsen, Otto, 25 Jahre Appenzell A.Rh. Heil- und Pflegeanstalt in Herisau. Herisau 1933
Lehninger, Anna, Ich gehe weg. Gertrud Schwyzers Werke aus der Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Herisau. In: Monika Jagfeld (Hrsg.), op. cit., S. 14-24
Luchsinger, Katrin, Hirsch, Helen, Röske Thomas (Hrsg.), Extraordinaire! Unbekannte Werke aus psychiatrischen Einrichtungen in der Schweiz um 1900 / Extraordinairy! Unknown works from Swiss Psychiatric Institutions around 1900, Zürich 2018
Signer, Aleksandra, “Zimmer 100 – Paul Schlotterbeck.“ Film