Cuno Amiet

In the work of Cuno Amiet (1868–1961), colour transforms our perception of the familiar world. A face, a bouquet or a landscape becomes an opportunity to explore relationships between tones, paint and sensation. His work engages with several of the major developments in modern painting.

Born in Solothurn, Amiet trained in Munich and then in Paris, where he continued his studies alongside Giovanni Giacometti. Their friendship placed his career within a lasting dialogue between Swiss artists and European artistic experiences. His meeting with Ferdinand Hodler in 1893 was another important milestone.

His stay in Pont-Aven in 1892–1893 marked a turning point. Through the Breton artistic community, particularly Roderic O’Conor, he discovered new possibilities in painting. The experiments of Gauguin and Van Gogh nourished an approach in which the arrangement of colours became increasingly free.

In 1898, he married Anna Luder and settled in Oschwand, in the canton of Bern. This place became his home and a meeting point for artists. In 1906, at Erich Heckel’s invitation, he joined the Expressionist group Die Brücke and participated in its exhibitions.

The countryside and garden at Oschwand supplied many of his subjects, including fruit-picking scenes. One way into this work is to follow the dialogue of colours before identifying the subject: to observe how a contrast animates the surface, how brushstrokes establish a presence or an atmosphere. This way of looking reveals the richness of his variations.

In 1931, the fire at Munich’s Glaspalast destroyed 51 of his works. Amiet nevertheless continued working into old age.