Margarethe Held

1894 to 1981, Germany

Margarethe Held was born in Mettingen, Germany. She married at the age of 27 but lost her husband after only four years of marriage. After the Second World War she became interested in occult practices.

In 1950, during an attempt to communicate with her deceased husband, a spirit known as "Siwa, God of the Indians and Mongols by order of the Most Heavenly God" contacted her. Under Siwa’s instructions, she brought hundreds of mediumistic drawings into the world. Margarethe Held’s drawings were produced using pencil or coloured pencils. She used clear, quick lines to depict the dead, spirits, deities or elves, which were her most common subjects. She signed her earlier work with the name ‘Fatima’. Her signature later consisted of her initials, intertwined in a shape similar to an hourglass. Many drawings and travelogues to other planets appear in her book titled Unkontrollierbares Universum (Uncontrollable Universe), published in 1977. The first solo exhibition of Margarethe Held’s portraits was held at the Galerie Susanne Zander in 1990.

Her work can be seen in several collections such as the Charlotte Zander collection, Germany, the collection of Arnulf Rainer, Austria, and the Treger-Saint Silvestre collection, Portugal. As of 2021, Margarethe Held has also been represented in the 921 works of the “Donation d'Art Brut de Bruno Decharme” at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Selected works