A Swiss-born Italian outsider artist known for his intensely emotional paintings and sculptures, particularly of wild animals and self-portraits, which depict his inner struggles. After a difficult childhood, often in isolation and with foster families, and facing expulsion from Switzerland, he settled in Gualtieri, Italy. His life was marked by poverty, mental illness, and periods of psychiatric confinement, but he found artistic expression through the guidance of artist Renato Marino Mazzacurati, who helped him practicing art as a profession. Toni al mat (the mad), so he was called, found in the artistic practice that safe place he had never been to, and also the opportunity to express his feelings.
He gained public recognition for his raw, expressive works in the 1960s, becoming a celebrated figure before his death in 1965.