Outsider Artist Josef Hofer, Hidden From Nazis as a Child, Dies at 80

Josef Hofer, the Austrian outsider artist whose parents hid him from Nazi forces because of a speech and developmental disability, died on Friday, October 23, in Ried im Innkreis, western Upper Austria. He was 80. Gallery Christian Berst in Paris, which staged his final show this fall, confirmed that he died shortly after being hospitalized for complications related to a pulmonary infection, according to Le Quotidien de l'Art.

Hofer rarely spoke and was hard of hearing. He expressed himself instead through raw, figurative drawings that drew directly on his own life and observations — including erotic nudes set inside a signature frame rendered in reds, yellows, and oranges, as though the figures were enclosed or trapped.

"He was one of those artists for whom creating was not a choice but a vital necessity," Christian Berst, the Paris gallerist who represented him, told ARTnews by email. "Drawing, for him, was a way of inhabiting the world, of making a mark in it and, perhaps, of inventing a place for himself there. His work, of rare intensity and humanity, will long continue to move us deeply."

How a hidden child became a collected artist

Hofer was born on March 17, 1945, in Upper Austria, weeks before the war's end in Europe. He was raised in rural isolation alongside his brother, who was born with similar mental and physical disabilities. That isolation did not stop when the Nazis fell: the Hofer parents feared any contact with the invading Soviet army and kept the family cut off.

The picture changed after the father's death in 1977, when the family moved to Kirschlag. There, Josef began interacting with other people and was admitted as an inpatient at a psychiatric clinic in Ried. He discovered his love for drawing in 1985 and went on to produce thousands of artworks on paper in colored pencil. His subjects evolved from farm life to raw, erotic nudes inspired in part by Egon Schiele. He signed the works "Pepi."

What does a late discovery change for an artist's legacy?

Hofer's entry into the art world came late and through chance. In 1997, art historian Elisabeth Telsnig encountered him at a drawing class in Austria — when he was already 52 — and later helped connect him to institutions.

The exhibitions followed across Europe:

• Collection de l'art brut (the Lausanne museum dedicated to self-taught art), 2003
• A retrospective at the Austrian Cultural Forum in Prague, 2010
• A major show at the Kunstmuseum Thurgau/Ittinger Museum in Warth, Switzerland, 2022

His work is now held by the Centre Pompidou and by collectors including Antoine de Galbert, Bruno Decharme, and the painter Arnulf Rainer — an institutional foothold that few outsider artists reach in a two-decade career.

Telsnig's first impression, recorded in the catalog published alongside his last exhibition, captures what made the drawings stand out. His work, she wrote, "represented a total break from anything I had been given to see until then."

Interest in Hofer is set to continue past his death. Mo.Co, Montpellier's contemporary art center, will include his works in the art brut exhibition "I Am the Phantom of My Own Opera," running from December 5 to May 2, 2027.