Johann Baptist Zeller
Born in 1877.
Died in 1959.
Johann Baptist Zeller (1877–1959) is documented as a peasant painter from Appenzell—often identified as a Senntummaler—and is listed in local directories (SIKART entry, identifier 4023935).
Largely self-taught, he took up painting in his youth and received instruction from Johannes Müller for a time.
As painting did not always provide him with a regular livelihood, his career alternated between artistic activity and agricultural work: he worked as a smallholder, farmhand, day labourer and farmer on various farms.
Stylistically, the documentation identifies him as a representative of traditional peasant painting—situated within the local repertoire of rural subjects—which explains why he is associated with the Appenzell tradition of Bauernmalerei.
In 1941, he was invited to the exhibition Schweizer Volkskunst at the Kunsthalle Basel, where he was presented as a contemporary peasant painter from eastern Switzerland.
Several regional institutions hold works attributed to him or recorded as his: Museum Appenzell; Museum der Kulturen, Basel; Appenzeller Volkskunde Museum, Stein; and Appenzeller Brauchtumsmuseum, Urnäsch.
