Emma Kunz (1892–1963) was a Swiss healer, researcher, and artist. She published three books and produced many drawings.

Early life

Emma Kunz was born to a family of weavers in 1892 in Brittnau, Switzerland.

Career

Kunz was not a trained artist; she is characterized as an outsider artist. Inspired by spiritual evolution, she divined with a

pendulum A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced sideways from its resting, equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward th ...

and created her drawings by

radiesthesia Radiesthesia describes an ability to detect radiation emitted by a person, animal, object or geographical feature. There is no scientific evidence of the existence of this pseudoscientific or occult phenomenon. Definitions One definition is " ...

. Kunz did not intend for her works to be seen in a fine arts context; none of her works were titled or dated. Kunz instead recorded the medical meanings of her works in books. Kunz began creating large-scale drawings on graph paper with pencil, colored pencil and oil pastels starting in 1938. She considered her drawings to be holograms that could be experienced multidimensionally. In 1942 in

Würenlos Würenlos is a municipality in the district of Baden in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland. It lies north of the river Limmat, next to the canton of Zürich, located in the Limmat Valley (German: ''Limmattal''). Geography Würenlos has an are ...

, Kunz discovered "AION A," a healing rock. The rock is still mined from the same place, and is sold in Switzerland. At the time of her death, Kunz had left behind a substantial body of work of 400 drawings. Kunz's first exhibition in the early 1970s, posthumously. The UK's Serpentine Gallery presented Kunz's second solo exhibition in 2019; the exhibition marked Kunz's first solo showing in the United Kingdom. For the exhibition, artist Christodoulos Panayiotou produced stone benches quarried from AION A.

Legacy

Said one scholar, in comparing her to other women artists, "

Hilma af Klint Hilma af Klint (; 26 October 1862 – 21 October 1944) was a Swedish artist and mystic whose paintings are considered among the first abstract works known in Western art history. A considerable body of her work predates the first purely abstra ...

Agnes Martin Agnes Bernice Martin (March 22, 1912 – December 16, 2004), was an American abstract painter. Her work has been defined as an "essay in discretion on inward-ness and silence". Although she is often considered or referred to as a minimalist, Mart ...

, and Emma Kunz approached

geometric abstraction Geometric abstraction is a form of abstract art based on the use of geometric forms sometimes, though not always, placed in non-illusionistic space and combined into non-objective (non-representational) compositions. Although the genre was popu ...

not as formalism, but as a means of structuring philosophical, scientific, and spiritual ideas. Using line, geometry, and the grid, each of these artists created diagrammatic drawings of their exploration of complex belief systems and restorative practices." The Emma Kunz Centre was founded in 1986 by Anton C. Meier, a relative of Kunz's, to preserve Kunz's research findings and art. The Emma Kunz Museum opened in 1991.

Exhibitions

*''Der Fall von Emma Kunz'' (''The Case of Emma Kunz''), 1973 *''3 x Abstraction: New Methods of Drawing by Hilma af Klint, Emma Kunz, and Agnes Martin,'' Santa Monica Museum of Art (2005). . *55th Venice Biennale, 'The Encyclopedic Palace' Central Pavilion curated by Massimiliano Gioni *''Emma Kunz: Visionary Drawings'',

Serpentine Galleries The Serpentine Galleries are two contemporary art galleries in Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Central London. Recently rebranded to just Serpentine, the organisation is split across Serpentine South, previously known as the Serpentine Gallery, ...

, 2019 *''Emma Kunz Cosmos - A Visionary in Dialogue with Contemporary Art'', Aargauer Kunsthaus, 2021

Publications

*''Leben'' (''Life'') (1930) - Poetry by Emma Kunz *''The Miracle of Creative Revelation'' (1953, self-published) - by Emma Kunz *''New Methods of Drawing'' (1953, self-published) - by Emma Kunz *''Emma Kunz'' (1976) - by Heini & Harald Szeemann & Thomas Ring. Widmer *''Emma Kunz 1892-1963. Forscherin, Naturheilpraktikerin, Künstlerin'' (1994) - by Anton C. Meier *''Emma Kunz. Artist, Researcher, Healer'' (1998) *''3 x An Abstraction: New Methods of Drawing by Hilma Af Klint, Emma Kunz and Agnes Martin'' (2005) - by Catherine De Zegher *''World Receivers: Georgiana Houghton - Hilma af Klint - Emma Kunz'' (2019) *''Zahl, Rhythmus, Wandlung : Emma Kunz und Gegenwartskunst'' (2020) - by Régine Bonnefoit *''Emma Kunz A Visionary in Dialogue With Contemporary Art'' (2021) - Edited by Yasmin Afschar

References

External links

Master of the Month: Emma Kunz
''Juxtapoz Magazine''
Emma Kunz Stiftung (Emma Kunz Foundation)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kunz, Emma 1892 births 1963 deaths Women outsider artists Outsider artists Swiss women artists Swiss artists Drawing mediums 20th-century American women artists 20th-century American people