ABSTRACT
Stigma has kept countless thousands of people from telling their stories of madness, but written accounts at least have had the chance to be published. Works arrived from dozens of institutions and took every conceivable form: paintings, drawings, sculptures, textiles, even installations. There were drawings in pencil and crayon and charcoal on school notebooks, institutional stationery, orange wrappers, meal plans, torn envelopes, packing materials, wartime propaganda pamphlets, and toilet paper. Some of the works were miniscule. Agnes Richter's jacket was among the most extraordinary objects to join the collection. In the mid-1960s, however, an assistant at the psychiatric clinic, Maria Rave-Schwank, became interested in the collection and began to organize the material. She got the works moved to protective cabinets with more controlled climatic conditions. In 2001, the Prinzhorn Collection was opened to the public in its new home—a beautifully restored building at the University of Heidelberg Medical School.
