Emil Novy was born in 1907 in Lower Austria, Austria, and died in 1968. Novy learned the craft of painting in his father’s workshop, which was located in the Karmeliterhof, now the St. Pölten City Museum. From 1962, he lived in the psychiatric clinic in Gugging, where he was given a “studio” just one year later. There he produced a large number of oil crayon drawings as well as poems and aphorisms. Handwritten, illustrated books with thousands of verses bear witness to this unique creative frenzy.