Künstler - - Stift Admont

Oskar Voll
*Blankenburg 1876, Last Mentioned in 1935, Werneck Clinic
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The journeyman tailor Oskar Voll, son of an alcoholic, emerged from his
travellings in Dortmund in 1897. The 21-year-old held “Reichstag talks” in a
restaurant so that he could be indoctrinated in Aplerbeck. Internments in
Hildburghausen, Raumweiler (worker facility), Düren and - after setting a fire –
Werneck followed (from 1903 to 1935).
Voll was described as “dangerous to the public” and “completely hebetudinous”;
he would unexpectedly burst out in rage or otherwise sit silently.
He was prepared to work in the tailor shop. He began to draw knights, soldiers
and birds on the veranda floor with coal. He began to give the doctor drawings
made "lovingly" and rejoiced in praise.
He suffered from hallucinations, angrily tore up drawings, remained silent for
weeks at a time and hid away in bed. He also concealed himself there at times
when he did not have paper. He sharpened his pencils on the stones of the
windowsills. Voll worked “autistically” on “stereotypical” drawings until the end,
spending much time lying in bed.
After 32 years, he was deemed “improved” in 1935 and transferred to the
“Römershag Charitable Clinic”.
Some of his books of drawings inspired by military night scenes from silent films
were displayed in the “museum” of the clinic in 1910 and 1924.
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