Sonja Sekula and “Art of the Mentally Ill”

Swiss immigrant Sonja Sekula (1918–1963) enjoyed a brilliant early career at the crux of Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism in New York circa 1950. Mental illness interrupted that career, and in 1955 she was forced to move “home” to Switzerland for treatment, which was more affordable there than in the United States. Sekula’s exile led to a fatal disjunction between herself and her American artistic community, which never again received her work so sympathetically—and subsequently largely forgot her. In addition to reacquainting us with Sekula’s work, this essay underlines the necessity of supportive community and helps us reconsider the category “art of the mentally ill,” which has heretofore included the work of severely ill patients but not flourishing, if ill, professional artists. Inclusion of the latter humanizes the mentally ill and allows us to contemplate how a wide range of illnesses affects art, artists, and their legacies.