Portrait of a Patient, 1915

In spring 1915, Erwin Osen (1891–1970) made a series of portrait drawings of patients in the psychiatric ward of the Garrison Hospital II on Rennweg in Vienna, where he himself was being treated for “chronic neurasthenia” over a period of several weeks. The works were likely commissioned by electropathologist and head of the neurology ward Stefan Jellinek (1871–1968) for purposes of medical research and education. The identity of the person portrayed in this drawing is unknown, as are his diagnosis and therapy. But unlike in most of the other patient portraits from this series, the clinical setting that they originated in is not only obliterated here, but replaced with a quasi-theatrical staging of the patient. Depicted in full-length profile, the pale body with the head bandage stands out against an abstract black backdrop whose shape is reminiscent of another figure in cloak and hood—the “Grim Reaper”, the personification of death. Osen countervails the diagnostic-therapeutic perspective of clinical treatment with the power of artistic fictionalization. The drawings are from Jellinek’s estate; others also included in the holdings of the Leopold Museum are:
Portrait of a Patient (“Bruno Granichstaedten”); Portrait of a Patient; Portrait of a Patient; Portrait of a Patient; Studies of Patients; Portrait of a Patient; Portrait of a Patient; and Portrait of a Patient (“Catamite”).

VG, 2022