Eugene Von Bruenchenhein: Obsessive Visionary

This major publication documents the life and work of self-taught visionary artist Eugene Von Bruenchenhein. Von Bruenchenhein (1910-1983) was an isolate or "outsider" artist from Wisconsin who produced several thousand works of art over a 40-year period. His fantastic oeuvre, discovered only upon his death in 1983, included hundreds of oil paintings depicting a universe of strange exploding shapes, imaginary landscapes, nightmarish creatures, and devastating nuclear blasts. He had also created countless chicken-bone sculptures shaped like towers and tiny thrones, ceramic crowns and vessels meticulously ornamented with repeating leaf designs, reams of poetry, pinup-style photographs of his wife Marie in exotic costumes, make-believe musical instruments, and gigantic concrete masks. This book includes an essay on the artist and his work by Joanne Cubbs, a selection of poetry and theoretical writings by Von Bruenchenhein himself, and a catalogue listing of works by the artist in the permanent collection of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center.