Josef Hofer :
ein lebenswerk
More than 250 drawings by Josef Hofer are on display until December 18, 2022 at the Kunstmuseum Thurgau / Ittinger Museum at Warth, (Switzerland).
Josef Hofer, who has been a resident of an Austrian institution for more than 30 years, does not speak. He draws. Tirelessly. In the metaphoric mirror that he uses and reaches out to us, people attempt to flee from the straitjacket of the frame with eroticized and untamed grace. His works - to which Michel Thévoz has devoted several essays - depict a founding duality between body and psyche. Present in numerous museum collections, he is also part of great private collections: A. de Galbert (France), A. Shaker (Switzerland) and even in the collection of A. Rainer (Austria), who considers him “one of the greatest of the brut contemporary artists.”
A resident of an Austrian institution, Josef Hofer did not speak; he drew. Tirelessly. In the mirror he held up to himself and to us, his figures strive to take flight within the confines of the frame, with an eroticized, untamed grace. His drawings give visual form to a foundational duality between body and psyche.
Held by numerous museums, his work features in major private collections such as those of Antoine de Galbert (FR) and Arnulf Rainer (AT), who regarded him as “one of the greatest contemporary art brut artists.” A significant group of his works entered the collections of the Centre Pompidou in 2021.
In 2026, the gallery published a 270-page monograph and launched an online catalogue raisonné of nearly 3,000 works.