HEINRICH MOTHERBEARD
Jasper Pol
www.jasperpol.com
HEINRICH MOTHERBEARD Heinrich Motherbeard was born in WestFahl, Southern Germany in 1917. As a young boy he helped in his fathers cigar shop and was already smoking cigars at the age of seven. Because of this he developed throat cancer at the age of 14 which he, with the help of an Austrian Doctor, miraculously survived. It left him unable to speak; with part of his tong and vocal chords completely destroyed. Originally wanting to become a writer, the loss of his ability to speak changed his writing and more and more Heinrich found himself adding drawings to his writing. In 1934 during the start of the troubles in Germany Heinrich fled to the United States. It is during this period, the period from 1935 1941, that Heinrich 'wrote' his first wordless novel which was never published but gathered great acclaim among the emerging artists of that period. The novel is now lost. The first, black & white, section in this book is a restoration of part of this novel while also representing the events in Heinrich's life during the war. After the war Heinrich stayed in the United States for a while, unemployed, frequently homeless. After years of struggle and increasing disillusionment he returned to his native country of Germany where he wrote his second wordless novel about his experiences in post war America. This is the second section of the book titled '1956'. The original was destroyed when Heinrich in a fit of rage set fire to his own house on the outskirts of Berlin. After setting fire to his house Heinrich disappeared and was deemed dead for 14 years but resurfaced in 1973 in Cologne where he died of pneumonia in Saint Helen's Memorial Hospital. His remains were buried on Schwarznarr hill in Andernach Southern Germany, the birthplace of his first wife Catherine. Heinrich was married four times and leaves three daughters Catherine, Vivian and Esmeralda, and one son Billy. Catherine, the oldest from his first marriage, lives in Cologne Germany. Vivian and Esmeralda live in Los Angeles. Billy is presumed dead; he disappeared while on vacation in Beunos Aires in 1984.
HEINRICH MOTHERBEARD
Jasper Pol
To Crazy Billy...
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www.jasperpol.com
Heinrich Motherbeard (1917 足 1973) is a ruefully neglected artist who was a forming influence on many emerging names in the American art scene of The Second World War. Presented here, for the first time, is a romanticized account of his life as related by him through his long lost wordless novels It is Finally Boring (1941) and Cathedral Lost Dream Streets (1956). In collaboration with friends and family of Heinrich, and Prof. Arnold H. Raumschiff, curator of The Museum of Outsider Art of Nebraska, Jasper Pol has gone through painstaking effort to reconstruct Heinrich's art from surviving artwork, notebooks, letters and photographs.