George Widener

b. 1962 · Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

Give George Widener any date in history and he will name the day of the week in seconds. Then he will fold it into a magic square and hide it in a drawing.

The life

Widener was born in Cincinnati in 1962 and served in the US Air Force before depression and psychiatric hospitalisation, later attending the University of Tennessee. Diagnosed in adulthood with Asperger syndrome, he is a calendar-calculating savant whose mind processes dates and numbers like a super-calculator, and he has channelled that gift entirely into art. He lives and works in Waynesville, North Carolina.

The work

Ink and mixed media on tea-stained paper napkins pieced into scrolls and sheets, covered edge to edge with calendars, magic squares, palindromic dates and numerical prophecies, with the sinking of the Titanic as a recurring obsession. His work is held by the American Folk Art Museum in New York, the Collection de l’Art Brut in Lausanne and the Halle Saint Pierre in Paris.

Why we love them

Most artists have a muse. Widener has the entire calendar, past and future, and it does what he tells it.

Go deeper

• George Widener at the Outsider Art Fair
• George Widener on Wikipedia
• Where to see outsider art, our full list of museums and collections.
• The glossary, if any of the terms here are new.

Kindred spirits

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