Rolf Knie
Born in 1949.
The son of Fredy Knie senior, director of the Swiss National Circus, he belongs to the sixth generation of the Knie dynasty. He first enters the ring at the age of five and grows up in close contact with the travelling life of the circus, an experience that remains a major source of his work. He should not be confused with his paternal uncle, Rolf Knie senior (1921–1997), an animal trainer and circus director.
After working in the ring, notably as an equestrian performer, animal trainer and clown, Rolf Knie becomes known through the comedy duo he forms with Gaston Häni, and later on the theatre stage and on screen. From the late 1970s onwards, he also develops his activity as a painter, encouraged and introduced to drawing and watercolour by the artist Hans Falk, who accompanies the circus for several seasons. His move to Majorca in 1990 marks a turning point: from then on, he devotes himself primarily to the visual arts and begins a series inspired by the Spanish corrida.
The circus remains at the heart of his visual vocabulary: clowns, animals and ring scenes appear alongside portraits, drawings, graphic works and figurative sculptures. His website presents paintings on canvas and on tent fabric, lithographs, collages made from posters and historic lithographs of Circus Knie, as well as bronzes. Animal and circus motifs thus provide a link between his experience in the ring and his studio practice.
With his son Gregory, he founds the winter circus Salto Natale in 2002, which he co-produces until 2021. The Swiss Museum of Transport lists him as a painter and preserves documents relating to his activities for Circus Knie.
