Xerxes Ach
Born in Esslingen am Neckar (Germany) on 14 April 1957.
Died on 22 August 2025.
Swiss · Contemporary abstract painting · colour, light and materiality.
Xerxes Ach was a Swiss abstract painter. Trained as a graphic designer and largely self-taught as a painter, he settled in Zurich in 1983; SIK-ISEA also documents his presence in Cenate Sotto from 2004 and his life partnership with Silvia Gertsch.
His work cannot be reduced to watercolour and drawing. In an interview with Kunstmuseum Bern, Ach described a development from expressive works and oils on paper through pigmented lacquer layers to a personally developed solvent-free egg tempera. His paintings are built from contrasting underlayers and multiple transparent coats to create fields of colour, light, depth and material presence.
Kunstmuseum Bern presented Silvia Gertsch and Xerxes Ach in the exhibition Sinnesreize from 23 October 2015 to 21 February 2016. Its 2016 annual report documents six watercolours from the Ideal Standard series, dated 2007, 2008 and 2011, in the museum collection, inv. A2016.018–A2016.023.
In 2018–2019 Harmonie des contrastes / Harmonia kontrastów was shown at the National Museum in Gdańsk with support from the Embassy of Switzerland in Poland and Pro Helvetia. The 2018 catalogue and Kathleen Bühler’s essay Haptic Meditations further document Ach’s investigation of colour and abstraction.
The documented market includes Ohne Titel, resin and pigment on aluminium, 1999, lot 601 at Dobiaschofsky on 6 November 2020, sold for CHF 2,200 against an estimate of CHF 1,800. Sotheby’s Zurich also offered Transformed, 1998, in 2009 with an estimate of CHF 5,000–7,000; no public realised price is displayed on the official page.
