This book could not have been written without the generous support of the staff at the Sammlung Prinzhorn in Heidelberg, where the significant material relating to this story is kept. I am indebted to the collection’s director, Thomas Röske, for his support and his patience, and for allowing me access to the archives; and particularly to Doris Noell-Rumpeltes. Doris, who died in February 2021, spent much of her career researching the Heidelberg artworks and the often obscure lives of the people who created them. Her knowledge of some of these artists, notably Else Blankenhorn, was unrivalled. In her last years, Doris helped me navigate the harder-to-access parts of Prinzhorn’s papers, the archive, and the collection itself. It is with the deepest gratitude that I dedicate this book to her.
Others at the Sammlung Prinzhorn—Ingrid von Beyme, Sabine Hohnholtz, Torsten Kappenberg, Christine Piehler, and Ingrid Traschütz—welcomed and helped me in various ways, often through their own prolific writings, as did the former curators and employees Maria Rave-Schwank, Bettina Brand-Claussen, and Inge Jadí, who were restoring and researching the history of the collection long before I happened upon it.
I am lucky to have received advice and assistance from numerous other experts in Germany, including Maike Rotzoll, professor at the Institute for the History and Ethics of Medicine at the University of Heidelberg; Christoph Zuschlag, professor of modern and contemporary art history at the University of Bonn; Gabriel Richter, chief medical officer at the Reichenau Centre for Psychiatry; Thomas Stöckle, head of the Grafeneck memorial site; and Martin Burst of the Emmendingen Centre for Psychiatry. I would also like to thank Dagmar Taylor for helping me with interviews and translations, and Natasha Abbas for trying to improve my German. In the UK, I sought help from the art historian Alison Price-Moir, of Hull University, and from Frank Rohricht, consultant psychiatrist at the East London NHS Foundation Trust: They have my gratitude. Though all of the above generously shared their specialist knowledge with me, any errors are my own.
There are at least four people without whom this project would never have begun. These are my superb agents, Stuart Krichevsky and Felicity Rubinstein, who always have a far better understanding of what might work than I do; and my fantastic publishers, Arabella Pike at William Collins and Hilary Redmon at Random House, whose faith allowed me to write the book and whose editing skills shaped it. Thanks must also go to the friends who advised and supported me during the writing process, among them Tomas Campbell, Ingrid Kari-Kari, Nick O’Toole, Toby Clements, Pascal Wyse, Sam Wollaston, Ian Katz, and Biddy Arnott; and to my family, Barbara English, Hugh English, and Harry, Arthur, and Eddie English. Most of all, I would like to thank Lucy Blincoe, for generally being fabulous.