Voll, Oskar
Germany, 1876 - 1935
Oskar Voll was born in 1876 in Blankenburg. He completed a tailor’s apprenticeship and then worked for companies locally and elsewhere in Germany. He was committed to asylums several times under the Nazi regime, but there are no records of his life after 1935. One of the most notable artists from the historical Prinzhorn Collection (in Heidelberg, Germany), Voll created a highly charged body of work which includes the obsessive examination of soldiers, other military figures and knights. Most of his drawings and sketchbooks reflect political themes of the early nineteenth century. With their narrative format, Voll’s drawings also seem to recall the early decades of silent film, and they echo German military traditions in portraying side views of static, uniformed men. Along with with such figurative subjects, Voll’s work also features landscapes and architectural variations. This sketchbook is the only one to have entered a private or public collection.
