Carlo Zinelli

1916-1974 · Verona, Italy

Shattered by war, he spent thirty years in a Verona asylum painting rhythmic processions of silhouetted figures, each pierced with four small holes, on both sides of every sheet he was given.

The life

A farm boy from outside Verona, Zinelli was sent to the Spanish Civil War with Italian forces in 1939 and returned broken; by 1947 he was permanently hospitalised at San Giacomo. Everything changed in 1957 when a sculptor and a psychiatrist opened a painting studio inside the hospital: Zinelli claimed his place in it every day for well over a decade, producing around three thousand double-sided sheets. He died in 1974; a foundation in Verona now tends his legacy, and Lausanne holds him among its founders’ favourites.

The work

Gouache silhouettes in fours: men, birds, dogs and boats repeating like stamped rhythms, punctured by his signature four holes, with later sheets weaving in fragments of speech and invented words. The pages beat like drums, pattern as pulse.

Why we love them

Given one room and gouache, he invented an entire percussion section for painting. Studios save people; that is why we built one.

Go deeper

• Collection de l'Art Brut, Lausanne
• 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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