TIMELINE of Charles Dellschau's life.

by Tracy Baker White

Addendum by Stephen Romano

1830 Charles August Albert Dellschau born in Berlin on June 5.

1834-1835 Rufus Porter publishes plans for two different airships in Mechanic's Magazine.

1830d '40s Aeronauts test-pilot balloon airships all over Germany and other parts of Europe.

18454 Porter builds and successfully flies two hydrogen-filled Aeroports.

1848 Revolutions A Germany; thousands of Germans seeking economic opportunities immigrate to the United States in the ensuing decade.

1848-1855 California Gold Rush. 1849 Rufus Porter publishes a pamphlet entitled Aerial Navigation: The Practicability of Traveling Pleasantly and Safely From New York to California in Three Days. . Dellschau immigrates to the United States, probably arriving at the Port of Galveston, Texas.

1850 Dellschau files a Declaration of Intention in Harris County, Texas.

1852 Henri Giffard builds the world's first navigable passenger airship, driven by a steam engine.

1853 First air balloon flies in Northern California.

1854-1859 Years for which Dellschau claims the Sonora Aero Club existed. Members include neighbors in the boarding house in which he resides.

c. 1859-1860 Dellschau returns to Texas and works as a butcher in Richmond, a center of the state's cattle trade.

1860 Dellschau becomes a United States citizen.

1861 Dellschau marries a widow with a five-year-old daughter. The couple goes on to have three children of their own.

1861-1865 American Civil War

1863 Ferdinand Von Zeppelin develops his plan for the zeppelin after visiting the Union Army Balloon Corps.

1863-1865 Dellschau's family is included on the Texas list of Confederate Indigent Families. He signs an Amnesty Oath in 1865.

1873 Dellschau's stepdaughter marries Anton Stelzig, a harness and saddle maker.

1877 Dellschau's wife and only son both die.

1879 Dellschau remarries; his second wife dies within a year.

1884 Dellschau moves to Brenham, Texas, where the Stelzig family has relocated. One of his two daughters disappears from historical records, indicating she may have died.

1887 Dellschau moves with the Stelzigs to Houston and works in his son-in-law's saddlery.

1890 Dellschau moves to Austin to be near his last remaining natural child, who is being treated for tuberculosis. He works as a butcher.

1893 Dellschau's daughter dies in Austin. Anton Stelzig dies in Houston. Dellschau returns to Houston to its with his stepdaughter and work in the saddlery. He eventually lives in back room of the family house, and will live there for the rest of his life.

1896-1897 Mysterious lights reported in the skies over several states in the West and Midwest; newspapers across the nation begin to refer to it as the Great Texas Airship Mystery.

1897 First aluminum airship flies, in Germany. c.

1898 Dellschau begins to write and illustrate memoirs of his time in California; they are completed approximately two years later. An 1898 letter to the editor about a perfect airship design published in the Houston Daily Post inspires a portion of the memoirs.

Letter to the editor by W.H. Brown,

The Houston Daily Post, December 6 1898.

The earliest known work by Charles A.A. Dellschau from 1898.

Dellschau's work was in large part a record of the activities of the Sonora Aero Club, of which he was a purported member. Dellschau's writings describe the club as a secret group of flight enthusiasts who met at Sonora, California in the mid-19th century.

One of the members had discovered the formula for an anti-gravity fuel he called "NB Gas." Their mission was to design and build the first navigable aircraft using the NB Gas for lift and propulsion.

Dellschau called these flying machines Aeros.

Dellschau does not claim to be a pilot of any of the airships; he identifies himself only as a draftsman for the Sonora Aero Club.

His collages incorporate newspaper clippings (called "press blooms") of then-current news articles about aeronautical advances and disasters.

According to a coded story hidden throughout the drawings which made up his notebooks the Sonora Aero Club was a branch of a larger secret society known only as NYMZA.

Despite exhaustive research, including searches of census records, voting rosters, and death records, nothing has been found to substantiate the existence of this group except for a few gravestones in the Columbia Cemetery where several of the surnames are found.

It is speculated that, like Henry Darger's "Realms of the Unreal", the Sonora Aero Club is most likely a combination of encounters the artist experienced in real life as well as fiction.

1899 The Wright Brothers begin crucial early flight experiments with biplane kites.

1900 The first zeppelin airship flies.

c. 1900-1903 Dellschau retires from the Stelzig saddlery.

1903 The Wright Brothers make the first successful flight of a fixed-wing airplane.

1908 Earliest date of work in Dellschau's twelve known hand-bound books of drawings of airships.

1910 The first airplane flight in the state of Texas, in Houston, by French aviator Louis Paulhan.

1921 Date of Dellschau's last known drawing.

1923 Dellschau dies, on April 20, in Houston.

Addendum

c.1960's Dellschau's 12 books of art are thrown into the trash by a caretaker and taken to a dump in Houston TX. They are immediately rescued by a "picker" named Fred Washington who brings them to his "Washington's Trading Post" in Houston, puts them under a tarp and forgets about them.

Fred Washington Sr. at his Trading Post in Houston TX c. 1965

One of the 12 books of drawing by Charles A.A. Dellschau

c. 1968 An intern from the Menil Foundation in Houston TX named Mary Jane Victor discovers the works of Dellschau at Washington's Trading Post and gets Domenic De Menil to acquire 4 Books, an acquisition totaling some 500 drawings enter the Menil collection.

1969 The Menil Foundation organize the exhibition "Flight" which includes for the first time ever the works of Charles Dellschau.

The art of Charles A.A. Dellschau displayed for the first time ever in the exhibtion "Flight", 1969.

Peter Navaro, a local graphic designer and UFO enthusiast sees the works at Menil and is immediately stuck by their possible connection to "The Great Texas Airship Mystery"

Over the next few years, Navarro studies the works of Dellschau at both Menil and Washington's Trading Post and ultimately acquires all the remaining books and obsesses over them for the next 20 years. Pete Navaro compiles "The Book Of Dellschau", a 500 page compendium of observations of every known work by Charles Dellschau as well as 15 volumes of field notes on the works of Charles Dellschau.

One of Dellschau's books in Pete Navaro's study c. 1970's

Sample pages from Pete Navaro's extraordinary "Book of Dellschau" and the 15 volume "Field Notes", the most exhaustive and comprehensive study of Dellschau's art to date.

c. 1990's Navarro sells some of the books to the San Antonio Art Association, which later splits up to become the San Antonio Art Museum and the Witte Museum, each taking 2 book with them.

c. 1996 a conservator at the Menil Foundation named William Steen acquires the remaining 4 books from Pete Navaro.

1997 William Steen sells 2 of them to Ricco Maresca Gallery in Manhattan. The gallery takes the books apart and frames and sells the individual pages .

1998 Ricco Maresca Gallery introduce the works at the Outsider Art fair 1998, and the artist is given enormous visibility with an article in the New York Times.

1998 First Ever solo exhibition and catalog of the works of Dellschau at Ricco Maresca Gallery in January 1998

"Charles Dellschau: Aeronautical Notebooks"

Catalog essay, republished in RAW VISION magazine is written by  Lauren Redniss.

1998 - 2006 Charles Dellschau is featured in the following exhibitions:

• "Wind In My Hair" - American Visionary Museum, 1996

• "Aeronautical Notebooks" - Ricco Maresca Gallery, 1998

• "Plots and Inventions" - Ramapo College, New Jersey, 2000

• "Visionary Dreamers" - University of Syracuse, New York, 2002

• "Flight or Fancy? The Secret Life of Charles A. A. Dellschau" - San Antonio Museum of Art, Focus Gallery, 2002

• "The Secret Life of Charles Dellschau" - San Antonio Museum, Menilo Museum, 2004

• "Eye of the World: Miniature and Microcosm in the Art of the Self Taught" - Addison Gallery of American Art, Pennsylvania, 2002

• "American Self Taught from the High Museum" - High Museum Annex, 2005

• "Dopes, Dupes, and Demagogues: Viewed by Outsiders" - Louise Ross Gallery, 2004

• "Create and Be Recognized: Photography on the Edge" - Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA), 2005

• "Inner Worlds Outside" - Whitechapel Gallery, London, 2005

2002 "Flight or Fancy? The Secret Life of Charles A. A. Dellschau" curated by Tracey Baker White- San Antonio Museum of Art, Focus Gallery, 2002

2006 Private Art Dealer and former Manager of Ricco Maresca Gallery Stephen Romano acquires all of the remaining works by Charles AA Dellschau from Ricco Maresca Gallery.

2009 Dennis Crenshaw and Pete Navaro collaborate on the book

"THE SECRETS OF DELLSCHAU: The Sonora Aero Club and the Airships of the 1800s, A True Story", published by Anomalist books.

2013 CHARLES DELLSCHAU's first major monograph is produced by Stephen Romano, designed by Marquand books and distributed by DAP.

The book which is enthusiastically reviewed contains a major essay on Dellschau by esteemed art writer and cultural anthropologist Thomas McEvilley who had previously written seminal works on Anselm Kiefer, Yves Klein, Julian Schanbel and marina Abramovick, among others. This is the wroter's last published essay before he passes away.

Other essay are by Tracy Baker White, Roger Cardinal, Curator of Aerospace at the Smithsonian Museum Thomas Crouch, President of the ABCD Collection in Paris Barbara Safarova, and gallerist Randall Morris. An introduction is made by Museum of Everything founder James Brett and acknowledgments are made by Stephen Romano.

In a review of the book for RAW VISION magazine, art writer Tom Patterson states that Dellschau is now "widely acknowledged as an outsider master in the same league as Henry Darger, Adolph Wolfli and Martin Ramirez".

2013 Charles Dellschau is featured at the PULSE art fair alongside Henry Darger at Stephen Romano booth and is acknowledged on the front page of

The Art Newspaper as the highlight of the fair.

2006 - 2015 Charles Dellschau is featured in the following exhibitions:

• "Flights of Imagination" - Witte Museum, San Antonio, 2008

• "ARTnow" contemporary art fair - Stephen Romano booth #21, New York NY, 2008

• "Messages and Magic: Collage and Assemblage in American Art" - John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, 2008

"Messages and Magic: Collage and Assemblage in American Art" - John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, 2008

• "Artists Books Through Time: Vol. 1", Cavin Morris Gallery, New York, 2009

• "Museum of Everything", London, England. 2009 -

• "Museum of Everything", Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin, Italy. 2010 -

• "Outsider Art Fair", Stephen Romano Booth #11, New York NY, 2011

• "Seeing Stars: Visionary Drawing from the Collection" Menil Collection, Houston, TX.September 23, 2011 - January 15, 2012

Menil Collection, Houston, TX. "Seeing Stars: Visionary Drawing from the Collection"

• "All Things Round" - American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, MD, 2011 - 2012

• "Darker Stars: The Roots of Steampunk Art", Cavin Morris Gallery, New York, 2012

• "Jubilation/Rumination: Life, Real and Imagined", American Folk Art Museum, 2012

• "Collectors of Skies", curated by Valérie Rousseau and Barbara Safarova, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York 2012

• "Museum of Everything", Paris, France. 2009 -

"Museum of Everything", Paris, France. 2009 -

• "Farfetched", curated by Roger Manley and Tom Pattersen, Gregg Art Museum 2013

"Farfetched", Gregg Art Museum, 2013

• "Restless II", Cavin Morris Gallery, New York, 2013

• "PULSE Art Fair New York 2013", Stephen Romano Booth B6 2013

• "Outsider Art Fair Paris 2013", Cavin Morris Gallery 2013

• Collectors of Skies, curated by Valérie Rousseau and Barbara Safarova, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York, NY

• All Things Round, American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, MD

• Seeing Stars: Visionary Drawings from the Collection, The Menil Collection, Houston, TX

• Brazilian Customs Snafu, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York, NY 2013

• The Metro Show, Stephen Romano Gallery Booth #201, Brooklyn, NY 2015, 2014, 2013

• MYSTERIUM COSMOGRAPHICUM Stephen Romano Gallery 2014

• Welcome to the Dreamtime Stephen Romano Gallery 2014

• Abundantia Cornu Copiae Stephen Romano Gallery 2014 - 2015

• Lexicon Infernali Stephen Romano Gallery 2015

• OPUS HYPNAGOGIA Morbid Anatomy Museum 2015 Curated by Stephen Romano July - October 2015

OPUS HYPNAGOGIA Morbid Anatomy Museum 2015 Curated by Stephen Romano July - October 2015

• "CHARLES DELLSCHAU (1830 - 1923): AMERICAN VISIONARY" Stephen Romano Gallery, New York. Dec 17 Jan 31 2016

"CHARLES DELLSCHAU (1830 - 1923): AMERICAN VISIONARY" Stephen Romano Gallery, New York. Dec 17 Jan 31 2016

• "The Outsider Art Fair" January 2017 STEPHEN ROMANO GALLERY, BROOKLYN NY

• The Museum of Old and New, Tasmania. "Museum of Everything" collection June 2016

The Museum of Old and New, Tasmania. "Museum of Everything" collection June 2016

• "Vestiges and Verse" American Folk Art Museum January - May 2018

• accompanying the exhibition is a catalog which includes a version of Thomas McEvilley's final essay, edited by the museum curator and the estate of Thomas McEvilley.

"Vestiges and Verse" American Folk Art Museum January - May 2018

• Scope Art Fair New York 2018.

Scope Art Fair New York 2018.

Chares Dellschau is included in the exhibition "Out Of This World"

presented by Gagosian Gallery, curated by Larry Gagosian

for the Seatle Art Fair. August 2018. SDellschau is presented alongside

some of the recognized names in modern art history.

The exhibition "Charles Dellschau and the Mythology of Flight" curated by historian Brian Chidester is presented at the

Brooklyn Antiquarian Book Fair September 7 and 8 2019.

Many works in this exhibition will be seen by the public for the very first time, on the 100th anniversary of their creation.

full press release.

Bruno Decharme, President of ABCD Art Brut, Paris dontated an entire volume of double sided paintings by Charles Dellschau to The Centre Pompidou, Paris, one of the greatest museums in the world.

These were the last works Charles Dellschau made.

Dellschau's final works are included in the exhibition at The Centre Pompidou, Paris

"SAISON ll - le BRI-COLAGE"

"The space dedicated to this donation, with a selection of works that changes every 6 months, invites us this time to discover the universe of different creators whose practice, under the sign of recycling, maintains a decisive dialogue with the material, transforming the concept of do-it-yourself (bricolage) into that of "bri-colage" according to the expression of the psychiatrist Jean Oury."

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