Goesch, Paul

Germany, 1885 - 1940

Paul Goesch is among the few trained artists whose work is included in the Prinzhorn Collection in Heidelberg, although Hans Prinzhorn did not mention him in his book Bildnerei der Geisteskranken [Artistry of the Mentally Ill], published in 1922; he was probably not “authentic” enough given that he had studied architecture and that his expressionist paintings and drawings made him part of the German avant-garde art scene. Goesch worked in the West Prussian civil service before spending approximately twenty years in psychiatric clinics in Schwetz, Gottingen and Teupitz. His diverse gouache paintings include portraits, depictions of architecture and Christian and mythological images. A victim of the Nazi “euthanasia” programme, Goesch was murdered by his doctors in 1940.