Edmund Monsiel

Polish, 20th century.
Born 1897, Wozuczyn, Poland; died 1962.

Not much is known about Edmund Monsiel, a classic Outsider Artist from Poland who worked in almost complete isolation to produce an extensive body of approximately 500 pencil drawings marked by repetition, proliferation, and astounding minutiae. There is a phrase often used to describe the Outsider impulse to crowd the picture plane: “horror vacuii” or fear of empty space. While this notion of fearful creation is most often misused, perhaps it is appropriate in the case of Monsiel.

After the German army forcibly occupied Monsiel’s modest shop, he fled, taking refuge in the attic of his brother’s house, located in the town of Wozuczyn. Fearing imminent arrest by the Nazis, Monsiel remained hidden there until his death from influenza in 1962. During his self-imposed imprisonment, he began to produce drawings in which the same mustachioed face repeatedly appears, connected in a continuous web with no beginning and no end.

Monsiel’s signature face—alternatively thought to be his own or that of Christ—varies in size from large to minute. He drew other faces and figures appearing with vestments and other symbols of religious and royal status. Written text appearing on these drawings is religious in nature.

It is not clear whether these drawings expressed fear, witnessed a protective faith, or both. Perhaps we will never know. In his singular dedication to continuous artistic production, his consistent formal inventiveness, and his impulse to meet adversity with creativity, Monsiel is a quintessential Outsider.

- Jenifer P. Borum

Biography

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