Karoline Rosskopf

*1911, date of death unknown, Austria

Karoline Rosskopf was one of the few female artists in Leo Navratil’s era in Gugging. Due to a brain disease, she became a patient at the psychiatric clinic, namely in the department in which Leo Navratil’s wife Erna worked as a doctor.

Karoline Rosskopf’s pencil drawings were created as test drawings. They are marked by severe, stereotypical geometric figures, which represent cephalopods and people. Considering her otherwise rather chaotic state – for example, she would cut up her clothes and sew them back together – Leo Navratil considered the formalism in her drawings surprising and unique. Michel Thévoz from the Collection de l’Art Brut was so impressed by her drawings that they can be found there in the museum in Lausanne. LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz also has works by her in their Leo Navratil collection.

Selected works