This is a selection of art, from artists who happen to be famous and have a mental illness. I’ve selected the works based on my own taste, rather than what is most well-known.
I think you’ll agree that you can be mentally ill and fabulously talented at the same time.
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Pablo Picasso Weeping Woman, 1937 (Schizophrenia) |
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Caspar David Friedrich Cloister Graveyard in the Snow, 1810 Destroyed during WWII (Clinical Depression) |
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Jackson Pollock Blue (Moby Dick), c. 1943 (Bipolar disorder) |
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Adolf Wolfli Irren-Anstalt Band-Hain, 1910 (Schizophrenia) |
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Edward Dayes The Fall of the Rebel Angels, 1798 (Bipolar disorder) |
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Edvard Munch Evening on Karl Johan, 1892 (Bipolar disorder) |
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Henri de Toulouse Lautrec La Toilette, 1896 (Clinical Depression) |
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Claude Monet Le dejeuner (The Lunch), 1873 (Clinical Depression) |
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Vincent Van Gogh Bench in a Wood, 1882 (Bipolar disorder) |
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Mark Rothko Slow Swirl at the Edge of the Sea, 1944 (Bipolar disorder) |
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Claude Monet Waterlillies, 1907 (Clinical Depression) |
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Pablo Picasso Figures on a Beach, 1931 (Schizophrenia) |
12 Responses 
Dr Shock 29 Jul 2007 @ 8:14 am
Nice paintings, but Pablo Picasso did not suffer from Schizophrenia, to my opinion. Narcissistic personality disorder probably, but having read his biography the diagnoses of schizophrenia seems unlikely to me.
All those women and how he dealt with them, no can’t imagine a patient suffering from schizophrenia doing that.
James Ensor [Belgian Expressionist Painter, 1860-1949] he suffered from Schizophrenia, see:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/archive/arts/26166/wonderfully-mad.thtml
Regards Dr Shock
Art by the Mentally Ill (Part 2: Not so Famous) | Finding Optimism 16 Aug 2007 @ 11:47 pm
[...] couple of weeks ago I posted some art by artists who are famous and have, or had, a mental illness. This is a similar post with artists who aren’t household [...]
mental illness and the arts » change therapy - isabella mori 19 Aug 2007 @ 11:02 pm
[...] at finding optimism, there are two good little articles on famous and not-so-famous painters struggling with mental illness. take picasso, for example, who is said to have suffered from schizophrenia, or monet, who was [...]
Noclegi Karpacz 18 Mar 2008 @ 3:30 am
Very nice pictures!
john johnson 4 Apr 2008 @ 5:43 pm
Yeah i believe the style used for the weeping woman is just so extrodinary.
Ana 8 Jun 2008 @ 7:44 am
This is a very difficult issue.
Diagnosing people who are alive is hard.
Diagnosing people who are dead and were not diagnosed in their lifetime is hard.
Diagnosing artists from the last century with diseases that didn’t exist is dangerous.
Van Gogh, whose work has always been regarded as a product of a his mental condition, has already been diagnosed:
-depression
-schizophrenia
-epilepsy
- maniac-derpessive
and now bipolar.
This is a very dangerous thing to do and psychiatrist love doing this lists of “famous lunatics”.
It’s amazing that all these people have a “good” character.
I’ve already met depressed, bipolar, schizophrenic people who are very evil and has no art skills.
Jung has a good approach on dissociating mental illness with “geniality”.
Katie 21 Aug 2008 @ 3:11 pm
Picasso schizophrenic? No. This man’s life and art are very well documented- Where on earth are you getting your information?
Karleen 15 Sep 2008 @ 1:22 am
Artists with a mental illness have been portrayed differently from the insider art community. If their mental illness is public knowledge the apprectiation of their art is valued on a different set of criteria. Their positions remain firmly marginal with respect to both mainstream and also avant-garde culture (Parr, 2006). Heidegger (1971) posits that a work of art does not stand on its own. Art exists within the recognition of the social or institutional construction of the boundaries of art worlds (Fine, 2003).
It is such a shame that we as a community can not learn to accept creative expression with out trying to label and diagnosed the output. Art interpretation and understanding occurrs through direct, personal experience of encountering of the work of art at an individual level.
Do the experiences of illness influence the artistic expression of the artist with a mental illness in ways that can be identified as different? Can the artwork of a person with a mental illness be considered within the aesthetic framework of the art establishment and thus can the person with a mental illness be considered as artist irrespective of their illness?
These questions have sparked 8 in Australia artists to share their experiences of the artist beyond the boundaries of their illness http://www.artistcitizen.com.
heidi 13 Nov 2008 @ 7:43 pm
Very intriguing artworks. I do beleive that these people did suffer from depression and bipolar disorder. there were no medications back then to help them heal. So wonderous and so sad.
Kyle Reynolds 16 Apr 2009 @ 5:33 pm
Love the site. Just wonder why so many people feel Pablo Picasso was Schizophrenic. I don’t think he was.
RawFilms 13 May 2009 @ 3:22 am
The next great artist with a mental illness. Allen Streets, a paranoid schizophrenic lives off his street paintings in New York City. http://www.mynameisalan.com
sandrar 11 Sep 2009 @ 9:26 am
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog. :) Cheers! Sandra. R.