Almost nothing, including his dates of birth and death, is known of the artist Marcomi, apart from his having spent a long period in a psychiatric hospital in Belgium. When the director of the hospital retired he donated drawings by a number of patients to the Collection de l’Art Brut; these drawings had been kept for a course in clinical psychiatry as a examples of "typical works by people with schizophrenia".

A recurring presence in Marcomi's output is a male figure in military dress, and repeated mentions of the year 1914 suggest that he had taken part in the First World War. Marcomi used coloured pencils and a bright, varied palette dominated by reds and blues.