Alfred Leopold Isidor Kubin (April 10, 1877-August 20, 1959)

The artist's life may be divided into three phases, whose duration is inversely proportional to the importance that the artist and his later biographers have attached to them. First came a troubled youth and adolescence, punctuated by his mother's death when the artist was ten, a suicide attempt at nineteen, and in 1897, a complete mental and physical collapse during a brief period of military service. Following a year-long convalescence, Kubin entered the second and pivotal phase of his life. Seemingly unfit for practical employment, he was sent in 1898 to Munich to study art, a longtime avocation for which he had shown some talent. In Munich's h...