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Oswald Tschirtner's first ambition was to become a priest, but he ended up studying chemistry. His education was interrupted when he was conscripted into the army during the second world war. He was as a prisoner of war in France and was not released until 1946. Soon after his return to Austria, Tschirtner was treated for mental illness at the Gugging psychiatric hospital near Vienna where he first began to draw. Tschirtner frequently produces images of elongated figures, with distinctive heads and feet. When drawing these figures he once said: 'this is how I am - always the same. 'He is a quiet man who has little contact with the other patients in the hospital. One of his main hobbies is filling in crossword puzzles.

Untitled 1978
© House of Artists - Maria Gugging
Etching
Musgrave Kinley Outsider Collection
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