Peter Birkhäuser
Peter Birkhäuser ( born June 7, 1911 in Basel, † 22 November 1976 in Binningen ) was a Swiss painter and graphic artist.
Life
Peter Birkhäuser was born in Switzerland, where he also grew up. 1928-1934 he trained at the School of Art Basel and then went to the Basel painter Niklaus Stoecklin in teaching. Even as a 22 -year-old, he owned his own studio as a freelance painter and printmaker. His worship was then considered the old masters. In their technique, he painted him fascinating objects of concrete reality. As a portrait painter, poster artist and as a graphic artist, he made a name for himself at the same time.
In 1939 he married Sibylle Oeri, who bore him two children and helped to shape his artistic development. The then political situation - Nazism and the Second World War, the psychological devastation associated - both deeply engaged. When Peter Birkhäuser got into a creative crisis in the 1940s and was pushed from the inside to leave the traditional style of painting, his wife introduced him to the world of ideas of Carl Gustav Jung. Birkhäuser then began an analysis and settled in the adventure, to be guided by his dreams. In an interview from 1970 Peter Birkhäuser said in retrospect:
" Something crossed me and destroyed my conscious ideals, consistently over the years, until I was so small that I gave. And I obeyed, even before I realized it. ... Only later, with the years, I was finally able to understand the meaning. But this stranger in me always knew the meaning. ... I experienced a power in me that I was not. This is religious experience. They forced me on a path that was not wanted of me that did not meet my former taste. It was ... a long way. But today, when I look back on the thousands of dreams and this long development and the victims, I see that it was a very valuable experience. " ( From the brochure of the Foundation Birkhäuser Oeri to work of the painter Peter Birkhäuser, 2008)
In addition to his now begins search for new forms and content in painting Birkhäuser worked in the 1940s with great success as a portrait painter and graphic artist on. Print developed, which are known to date. Regularly his work has received. Only later he moved his focus on the font graphic.
Produced images that clearly mark a transition in painting. In art criticism they received the label magic realism. In 1953 he made his breakthrough with painting inner pictures with the painting " The Split ". Led by the dreams developed Birkhäuser in 1953 his incomparably own style of painting spiritual reality. There was an extensive work on dream imagery, which he repeatedly showed in exhibitions.
Peter Birkhäuser died in 1976 as a 65 - year-old.