Edmund Monsiel was born in Poland. He attended primary school and, a few years later, managed a small shop in a provincial town, which was confiscated by the Germans in 1942. Fearing arrest, he took refuge in his brother's attic in Wozuczyn. He hid there until the end of the war and never left until his death, refusing all contact.

It seems that the threat from the occupying forces was merely a pretext for his self-imposed seclusion. Edmund Monsiel also suffered from autism and auditory and visual hallucinations.

Edmund Monsiel created some five hundred pencil drawings, which were found in this attic after his death. They almost exclusively depict Christ-like faces through a line that, as it develops, generates other physiognomies, ad infinitum.

Texts, mostly religious professions of faith, exhortations to piety, or moralizing maxims, also appear on the front or back of his compositions.

(Source: Collection de l’Art Brut)