F. Kouw was born at the end of the nineteenth century. He was a patient in the Sainte-Anne hospital, in Paris, where his works were conserved by Dr Auguste Marie. The doctor was one of the first to collect and show art works by mental patients. A note jotted in the margin in 1912 says: „F. Kouw believed himself to be a great artist and a scholarly creator of a new kind of art.“
Kouw created landscapes by combining straight or curved lines and circles. These environments were usually symmetrical and seem to obey mysterious mathematical rules. Some landscapes have several points of view and show great inventiveness. He drew with graphite and coloured pencils and occasionally added watercolour. He sometimes also used the back of his drawings.