Josefa Tolrà

1880-1959 · Cabrils, Catalonia, Spain

After losing two sons, a Catalan seamstress began to draw at nearly sixty, guided, she said, by fluidic beings of light. The avant-garde came up the hill to watch.

The life

Tolrà lived her whole life in the village of Cabrils near Barcelona, sewing and working the land. Grief broke the ordinary surface of that life: after the deaths of two sons she began, in the 1940s, to draw and write in trance, signing works Pepeta Tolrà, medium. Her cottage became a quiet pilgrimage site for Barcelona artists and poets of the 1950s, who recognised something the academies could not supply. Major Catalan retrospectives since 2013 have restored her to view.

The work

Ink and coloured-pencil drawings of luminous beings, cosmic landscapes and protective female figures, framed by handwritten messages of consolation, alongside embroidered cloths where the thread wanders like her line. The work heals first and asks questions later.

Why we love them

Sixty years old, twice bereaved, zero training, and she simply began. Beginnings do not expire.

Go deeper

• 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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