Hans Erni

After apprenticeships as a surveying draughtsman and architectural draughtsman, he attended the Lucerne School of Arts and Crafts in 1927–1928. He continued his training at the Académie Julian in Paris and at Berlin’s Vereinigte Staatsschulen für freie und angewandte Kunst, where he studied in Maximilian Klewer’s class. From 1930 Erni divided his time between Lucerne and Paris and became involved with the international avant-garde.

Deeply influenced by the Cubism of Picasso and Braque, he worked during these years under the pseudonym “françois grèque” or “françois grèques” and joined Abstraction-Création. In 1937 he became a founding member of Allianz, the association of modern Swiss artists. The 1935 Lucerne exhibition “These – Antithese – Synthese” and his monumental mural for the 1939 Swiss National Exhibition were crucial milestones.

The latter established the basis of his distinctive synthesis of abstraction and representational art. A painter, draughtsman, graphic artist, printmaker, sculptor, ceramicist and poster designer, Erni produced an exceptionally extensive body of work. His recurring subjects include the human figure, animals, mythology, sport, science, technology and social responsibility.

His compositions combine fluent, precise line with strongly modelled figures and abstract spatial structures. His progressive political views led to a period of official marginalisation during the Cold War, but did not halt an international career sustained by numerous public commissions. The Hans Erni Foundation was established in 1976, and the museum devoted to his work opened in Lucerne in 1979.

In 2009 the Kunstmuseum Luzern marked his centenary with a major retrospective.

The works by Hans Erni presented by Swiss Art Gallery extend this artistic journey and take their place naturally within this corpus.