“It is not every medium who is able to get into the headlines of the British press without being ridiculed, but this feat has been achieved by Herr Heinrich Nusslein,” psychical researcher Harry Price wrote in the November 1928 issue of Psychic Research, published by The American Society for Psychical Research. Price mentioned that more than 200 of Nusslein’s paintings were on view in London galleries at the time.
Price went on to explain that Nusslein (1879-1947, upper left photo), of Nuremberg, Germany, was advised by a business friend to develop the psychic powers he believed him to possess. Nusslein was described as “scornfully sceptical” but soon discovered he had a gift for automatic writing – mostly scraps of verse, odds and ends of forgotten knowledge, and, later, grandiose descriptions of his own psychic powers and productions. He then began producing some crude automatic drawings, the quality of which improved after some experimenting. This all took place during or around 1923, when Nusslein was in his mid-40s. Today, Nusslein is considered one of the most famous mediumistic or visionary artists. He claimed that deceased artists such as Albrecht Durer guided his hand, but many references stop short of saying that his visions were inspired by artists in the spirit world.
“In approximately two years, Nusslein, who had only one-ninth of normal vision, painted some two-thousand pictures,” Price further explained. “He always paints from imagination and memory, never from models, no matter what the subject. Except that ‘a spirit message’ on one occasion warned him to abstain from painting for six weeks, his powers are constant.” He added that Nusslein produces his pictures under varying degrees of consciousness and that many of them are painted from “visions” which appear to him and these were painted in complete darkness.
“The technique employed by Nusslein is very curious,” Price continued. “Some of the painting look as if his hands only had been used in producing them. The finger strokes are distinctly visible in many of his subjects and he has an almost uncanny gift for producing the impression of crowds of people or spirits, and processions with a very few strokes.” He completed a painting in anywhere from five minutes to forty minutes, his actions said to be “with lightning rapidity.” His ‘Lemure Scene from Faust’ (upper right, top) was completed in 18 minutes, while ‘Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony’ (upper right, bottom), required 23 minutes.
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