Walter Bodmer
Born in 1903.
Died in 1973.
Walter Bodmer (born 12 August 1903 in Basel — died 3 June 1973 in Basel) was a Swiss painter and sculptor whose work is documented, from 1936 onwards, by an intensive use of metal wire, resulting in metal reliefs and sculptures that the source presents as a pioneering contribution to abstract art. This material distinctiveness forms part of a stylistic development in which his art moved from Impressionism to abstract painting.
Trained in Basel, he attended painting classes at the city’s general vocational school from 1919 to 1923. In 1927–1928, he travelled to Paris and Collioure with Otto Abt and Walter Kurt Wiemken, occasions on which he met other artists such as Serge Brignoni and Jean Matisse. In 1932, he was introduced to the technique of monotype by the German artist Hein Heckroth, and in the same year — in February 1932 — held his first solo exhibition at the Kunsthalle Basel.
Highly active in the Basel milieu, he was, together with Walter Kurt Wiemken and Otto Abt, a co-initiator in 1933 of the anti-fascist Gruppe 33.
In terms of practice, he developed a plural visual language — drawings, reliefs, wire structures and sculptures — and, from 1936 onwards, worked intensively with metal wire to produce reliefs and sculptures that, according to the source, made a pioneering contribution to abstract art. Alongside his visual and graphic activity, Bodmer pursued musical activities in the 1930s as a saxophonist and drummer with Fred Many's Band, and in 1939 taught life drawing, figure drawing and anatomical drawing at the Kunstgewerbeschule Basel. In terms of public presentations, he took part in the 1936 avant-garde exhibition Zeitprobleme in der Schweizer Malerei und Plastik at the Kunsthaus Zürich and exhibited in 1947 at the Kunsthalle Bern alongside Leo Leuppi, Alexander Calder and Fernand Léger.
His works gained wider recognition, with the source noting international recognition in the 1950s and his participation in documenta 2 in Kassel in 1959. Among the recorded distinctions are the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation’s National Art Prize for Switzerland in 1956 and the City of Basel Art Prize in 1968.
