In Surrealsm and Madness paintings, drawings and prints by the surrealists are juxtaposed with works from the Prinzhorn Collection which Hans Prinzhorn had published in Artistry of the Mentally Ill (1922). The same year as it was published Max Ernst brought the book to Paris, where, as a 'Picutre Bible', it became a source of inspiration of many surrealists.
There are remarkable analogies in creative processes: the automatic drawings of Andre Masson are
anticipated in the "scribblings" and 'informal' paintings of asylum inmates: in his paranoiac-critical method, Salvador Dali explicitly refers to charachteristics of psychic illness which produce visual double meanings and ambiguities; Max Ernst was paritculary intested in the combination of heterogeneous elements, a practice which Prinzhorn describes in detail for some illustrations in his book; and precursors for Hans Bellmer's body fusions and 'cephalopods' can als be found in the Collection.
See also an article about the book "Gegenwelten in Zwirn, Bettlaken und Papier" by Julia Voss,
Frakfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 18. Februar 2010
Surrealismus und Wahnsinn / Surrealism and Madness
Edited by: Thomas Röske and Ingrid von Beyme
Wunderhorn ISBN: 978-3-88423-338-2
Max Ernst, Oedipus, 1931 / (Cover of he special edition of "Cahiers d'art" 1937)
August Natterer (Pseudonym: Augus Neter), Wunder Hirthe (II), ca. 1911-13
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