The Art of Antonia Jabloner at Aberdeen Art Gallery
Artist who spent her final decades in psychiatric care left behind a sketchbook of architectural plans she never got to build.
Antonia Jabloner studied architecture and applied arts in Vienna in the late 1920s. She fled Austria in 1939 with her father as war approached, eventually settling in the North East of Scotland, where she worked as a housekeeper on Deeside. By the 1970s she was living in long-term psychiatric care in Aberdeen. She died in 2002.
It was art therapist Joyce Laing who first noticed Jabloner’s abilities during her time in care, recognising her as one of a number of artists whose work deserved preservation. Laing assembled what became the Art Extraordinary collection, now held at Glasgow Life Museum, which includes Jabloner’s embroideries, paintings and notebooks.
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One of those notebooks, Plans for Another World, is filled with architectural drawings for buildings dedicated to music, warmth and community. A woman of her generation producing detailed architectural plans was unusual enough. Whether those drawings connect to the Camphill community on Deeside, as some have suggested, remains uncertain. There are significant gaps in Jabloner’s story, and the artists behind Elevated Dreams don’t pretend otherwise.
Three artists, one story
The exhibition is a collaboration between three artists. Cath Keay has made sculptures that move between Jabloner’s identities as housekeeper, refugee and artist. Emma Bowen uses cine film to trace locations and influences from her life. Victoria Hume composed original music drawing on recordings from Vienna and Jabloner’s own writing.
Works from Elevated Dreams, Cath Keay, Emma Bowen and Victoria Hume's response to the life and art of Antonia Jabloner.
“What struck me, besides Antonia’s vivid imagination, was the architectural conventions she used,” Keay has said. “These are unusual in her generation where women had little access to that profession.”
Keay has also put out an open invitation: if you knew Jabloner during her lifetime, or have other examples of her work, she’d very much like to hear from you. The record is incomplete, and there’s still time to add to it.
Elevated Dreams is now open at Aberdeen Art Gallery. Entry is free.
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