ENGELBERT KIEFERNAGEL

(1928 – 1987) Kievernagel was a typical outsider artist.

In 1981 he tried to improve his critical financial situation with a series of extortion letters. In a letter dated 27. May 1981, he demanded 5000 Marks per month of the Blau Gold Tennis Club e.V. in Berlin. Kievernagel threatended to blow the clubhouse should the money not be forthcoming. He also threatened: „If you go to the police and make charges against me then I´ll have you killed.“ One day later, he arrogated a monthley sum of 20.000 Marks of the Private Clinic for Psychogenic Illness in Berlin. Again, he threatened to cause an explosion in the clinic if they wouldn´t pay. He was then sentenced to a yet another psychiatric clinic. In the same year Kievernagel was diagnosed with cancer. When he was supposed to undergo a second operation, he left the hospital and refused medical treatment. He started to draw intensively, until his death he produced hundreds of works, mainly with ball-point pen and felt-tip pens on DIN A4 size type writer paper, and later DIN A1 sized drawing paper. He always gave away his drawings.