Born Joseph Ernest Ménétrier in Paris in 1853, Emile Josome Hodinos trained as an engraver under the acclaimed French medallist Paulin Tasset. Yet it was his internment in the Ville-Évrard hospital at the age of 23 which enabled him to fulfil his substantial creative vision.

Using the hospital as his studio, the young would-be moneyer adopted a pseudonym and commenced his lifetime opus: a series of intricate medals and coins, along with scenes from Roman daily life and culture, etched onto scraps of found paper and food wrappers, and featuring allegorical female figures and cryptic mottos in a decorative imaginary republic.

In this, his secret world, the artist functioned as both as emperor and civilian. Blending the discipline of engraving, with compulsive repetition brought on by a reported mania, Hodinos produced hundreds of drawings - many of them lost to time, but some remarkably saved.

Hodinos was first presented to the world in Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism at the Museum of Modern Art, curated by Alfred Barr in 1936/37. He was then incorporated into the Collection de l’Art Brut by artist Jean Dubuffet, and subsequently profiled in a publication (Fascicule 18).