Austro-Hungarian artist Alfred Kubin’s surreal imagery alienates viewers with the largely monochromatic dingyness of the world he created. His lithographs and pen and ink illustrations show influences of Goya and Edvard Munch, but it’s the the colorless, scratchy haze that makes these nightmares so affecting. Death, violence, fertility and fascism all play out in a dimension of strange physics, with revolting bodies and monstrous creatures. It’s fitting he got work illustrating the works of Poe and Dostoevsky.

Kubin came by his haunting visions honestly—he was extremely troubled throughout his life. In 1896, he attempted suicide on his mother’s grave. He inexplicably joined the army shortly after, but washed out due to continued mental health issues, and finally decided to study art. Kubin had some initial success with the Munich avant-garde scene early on, but eventually drifted away to work more autonomously, even writing a few novels, the themes of which pair well with his art.

Kubin moved to a small, rural 12th century Austrian castle in 1906, but traveled fairly often to promote his work. As you can imagine, the first World War affected him deeply (during this time he converted to Buddhism for a while), and themes of war became more prevalent in his drawings. Regardless, he continued to work fairly consistently, even during WWII when the Nazi regime banned his art as “degenerate.” Despite all of this, he died at the age of 82 in 1959, fairly successful.
 

 

‘Das Grausen,‘1902
 

 

‘The North Pole,’ 1902
 

 

 

‘Der Staat,’ 1899-1900
 

 

‘Des Menschen Schicksal III,’ 1902-03
 

‘The Egg,’ 1901-1902
 

What Do You See
 

 

‘Nuestra madre, la Tierra,’ 1902
 

Selbsbetrachtung
 

 

 
H/T Ross Wolfe