This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Charles Dellschau is remembered as an "outsider artist", working primarily in watercolor and ink drawings and compulsive about finishing every day, at least one of his fantasy paintings, usually of theoretical aircraft. Prior to his retirement, Dellschau was a butcher in Richmond, Texas until 1887 and then a saddle maker in Houston until 1900 when he retired.
Dellschau was born in Brandenburg, Prussia and came to the United States in 1850 and settled in Galveston, Texas. He evidently served in the Civil War and settled in Richmond, Texas following the war. He worked as a butcher until 1887 when he moved to Houston to work as a saddle maker.
Dellshau died in Houston, Texas.
Exhibitions included University of Saint Thomas, Houston, Texas; Rice University, Houston, Texas; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; San Antonio Museum of Art and the Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore (1966).
Source:
John and Deborah Powers, "Texas Painters, Sculptors, and Graphic Artists"
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At about the same time the Wright Brothers were making their historic first flights in Kittyhawk, Charles A. A. Dellschau was beginning to create a series of watercolors that would consume him for the last twenty years of his life. Aviation had long been a passion for Dellschau, who obsessively collected mentions of its fledgling efforts in the local newspapers, often incorporating the clippings into his work.
Each work incorporates a collaged date from a newspaper corresponding to the day of the work's execution. The machines are generally shown either in profile, head-on or from a bird's eye view and are populated by their pilots and passengers.
Dellschau's work is contemporaneous with the great European Outsider, Adolph Wolfli. Although Dellschau's work is more single minded in its focus on a single type of subject matter than the broad vision of the Swiss master, they share a similar genius for innovative compositional solutions and a decorative splendor.
Source: Christie's New York |
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