On September 23, Bruun Rasmussen will auction ten works by Ovartaci, the Danish Art Brut master born Louis Marcussen. Ovartaci, who lived at the psychiatric hospital in Risskov for 56 years, created surreal figures, abstract female forms, and distinctive 'smoking phantoms'—handcrafted cigarette holders turned into magical beings. His breakthrough came in 1979 with the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art's 'Outsider' exhibition, and he has since been shown at the Venice Biennale and the CoBrA Museum of Modern Art. The online auction is already open for bidding, with a preview in Aarhus.
This auction matters because Ovartaci's work has seen surging international demand from collectors and museums, often achieving high hammer prices. His art, rooted in outsider and Art Brut traditions, resonates with contemporary discussions of gender, identity, and tolerance—Ovartaci underwent gender reassignment surgery in the 1950s and later reidentified as male. The sale offers rare access to pieces that bridge Danish art history and global outsider art, reflecting a growing market for authentic, transformative works from psychiatric contexts.