For years, celebrated Gugging Artists August Walla and Johann Hauser lived and created side by side – but very much apart
On a hill at the edge of Maria Gugging – a small village near the Lower Austrian town of Klosterneuburg – is an imposing, white-stuccoed building painted with a huge, blue star with four uneven points.
The Museum Gugging building with Johann Hauser’s huge, blue star
The building was once the children’s pavilion ward in the state-run Maria Gugging Psychiatric Clinic. Today, it houses Galerie Gugging, as well as Museum Gugging which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Two of Gugging’s most renowned artists would have reached milestone birthdays in 2026 too: Johann Hauser his 100th and August Walla his 90th.
August Walla’s room in the House of Artists
Hauser was born in Bratislava in 1926, between the two World Wars. During the second of the wars, in 1943, when he was about 17, he moved to Austria with his family. He was committed to a “mental hospital” in the village of Mauer, from where patients were often sent to Hartheim Castle and murdered under the Nazi-regime. Hauser, however, was transferred to the Mental Health and Care Facility at Maria Gugging Psychiatric Clinic at the age of 23, staying there until he died in 1996.
During his time at Gugging, he became an artist. He started to draw in 1959 for the diagnostic tests that his psychiatrist Leo Navratil had introduced as part of his medical research at the clinic. Hauser carried on drawing to further aid the studies of Navratil – who referred to him as “Hans” in his first publications about psychiatric art – but now he also drew for his own pleasure.
Johann Hauser, Airplane, n.d., pencil, wax crayon and gouache on paper, 17.5 x 12 in. / 44 x 31 cm
With many thanks to MICHAELA FLECK-REGENFELDER.
This is an article extract; read the full article in Raw Vision #128.
