ANNA HACKEL
b. 1864 Wolfersdorf, Czech Lands
d. ?
WORKS | BIOGRAPHY | EXHIBITIONS | PUBLICATIONS
SELECTED WORKS
BIOGRAPHY
Anna Hackel (often misspelled Anna Haskel) was the daughter of smallholders from North Bohemia. When her parents died, she was twelve years old. She had to quit primary school after three years and had to run the house. Anna married at 20, but her husband died only three years later. Her two children also died at a young age. These events led her to find an "unshakeable belief in God and confidence in his success”, according to a biographical note of a certain Mr. Lederer in 1932. She went on to start a successful butter business that allowed her to make a good living until World War I, when she lost everything.
Since December 1918 she felt a strong urge to draw. In the evenings, she sat down and drew feverishly for hours. As she described herself, she needed to be mindful and concentrate on nothing, then the drawings would flow out of her automatically and she had the distinct sensation that her hand was led by a higher power. Her floral works are replenished with striking detail. Elegant tendrils and arabesques form floral motifs with clear geometric shapes in a rich palette of colors, with petals often forming mandala-like paterns.
EXHIBITIONS
2019 Plants of the Soul: Floral Fantasies between Symbolism and Outsider Art. Wilhelm Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen, Germany, 3/31/2019 – 8/4/2019
2015 L’art pour l’art – Collection Sainte-Anne, Centre hospitalier Sainte-Anne, Musée Singer-Polignac, Paris, France, 5/292015 – 7/28/2015.
2006 Eloge de la répétition – Collection Sainte-Anne, Centre hospitalier Sainte-Anne, Musée Singer-Polignac, Paris, France, 9/16/2006 – 10/15/2006.
2003 La clé des champs, Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris, France, 7/9/2003 – 9/28/2003.
PUBLICATIONS
Dubois, Anne-Marie (ed.), De l'art des fous à l'art psychopathologique: La collection Sainte-Anne. Paris: Somogy éditions d'art, 2018.