Background
Cuno Amiet was born on March 28, 1868, Solothurn, Canton of Solothurn, Switzerland. He was the son of the historian and local archivist J. J. Amiet.
Paris, France
Cuno Amiet enrolled at the Academie Julian in 1889.
Munich, Bavaria, Germany
Cuno Amiet studied at the Munich Academy from 1886 - 1888.
artist illustrator painter sculptor
Cuno Amiet was born on March 28, 1868, Solothurn, Canton of Solothurn, Switzerland. He was the son of the historian and local archivist J. J. Amiet.
At the age of fifteen, Cuno Amiet was apprenticed to the Swiss realist painter Frank Buchser, a powerful personality whose interest during the 1860 in the transcription of the effects of light prefigured that of the Impressionists. Amiet was enrolled at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts, where he met his life-long friend Giovanni Giacometti. He stayed there from 1886 to 1888. In 1889 he and Giacometti transferred to the Académie Julian in Paris. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Berne in 1919.
Cuno Amiet found his academic training in Paris unsatisfying and, upon the advice of a friend, departed for Pont-Aven in 1892 and remained in that now-famous Breton village for 13 months. There he immediately came into contact with the painters and the work of the Gauguin circle (Paul Gauguin, himself, had left for Tahiti in 1891). It was this experience that made the deepest and most lasting impression on the artist and that made possible his full development as a colorist. While at Pont-Aven Amiet was also introduced to the art of etching by Armand Séguin.
Upon his return to Switzerland in June 1893 Amiet's new paintings were met with ridicule. It was only natural that he should therefore have been drawn to Ferdinand Hodler, an artist 15 years his senior and accustomed to doing battle with critics and the public. From 1898-the year in which he painted Hodler's portrait-through 1903, Amiet fell under Hodler's influence and sought a compromise between the color-rich, painterly manner of Pont-Aven and the strict draughtsmanship that Hodler had distilled from the German tradition.
In 1904, when Hodler and Amiet were given major exhibitions at the Vienna Secession, Amiet was viewed as a young follower of Hodler, and he recognized the truth in this judgment. It was at this time that Amiet, returning to the path opened by the modern French art of Pont-Aven, developed into an independent artistic personality, and between 1904 and 1914 he produced some of the finest paintings of his career.
In February 1905 the Künstlerhaus in Zurich gave Amiet a one-man exhibition that, once again, proved to be controversial. This exhibition then travelled to Dresden, where, as the gallery director recognized, it was too far ahead of the public's ability to understand. Nevertheless, it was here that Amiet's work was seen by the future members of the first German expressionist group, called Bridge, or Brücke: E. L. Kirchner, E. Heckel, and K. Schmidt-Rottluff. Several weeks after Amiet's exhibition closed, Brücke was formally organized, and in 1906 Amiet was invited to join this important confraternity that he himself had inspired. He accepted the invitation, and his work was included in the first Brücke exhibition in December 1906. Amiet remained a member of Brücke until its dissolution in 1913, although his participation in its exhibitions and activities diminished in intensity after 1908.
In 1907 Amiet had arranged for Brücke to show as a group in his native Solothurn, and was thereby instrumental in introducing yet another modernist current into Switzerland. Amiet slowly forged his career over the years while working in the idyllic Bernese village of Oschwand. He was aware of the dangers of isolation but apparently needed the beauty of the landscape and the continuing attachment to his homeland for his personal and artistic growth. He settled in Oschwand in 1898 and continued to live there until his death in 1961 at the age of 93.
During the early 1920 he also turned his hand to sculpture and produced a group of expressive portrait busts in bronze and marble. Amiet's career was singular by virtue of both its length (over three quarters of a century) and an astonishing variety of work that incorporated both French and German modernist elements. In 1931 over 50 of his paintings, including some early masterpieces, were destroyed in the fire that consumed the Glaspalast (crystal palace) in Munich. Amiet surmounted this blow with an intense activity that ended only with his death 30 years later.
Magnolia
1945Junge Frau Im Garten (Amy Moser)
1910Seelandschaft mit bergigem Ufer
1907A Fountain of Youth
1917Der gelbe Hügel
1903Girl with Flowers
1896Self Portrait with Apple
1903Lucie Meyer
1924Portrait du chanteur Felix Loeffel
1924Thunersee
1931Atmosphere
1932Dorf mit Kirche im Bergell
1907Garden overlooking Oschwand
1938Self portrait
1954Poppy in Blue Vase
1908Self-portrait
1899Bauerngarten
1918Portrait d'Alberto
1910Bildnis Frau Amiet
1925Sunspots
1904Portrait von Oskar Kurt
1894Apfelernte
1907Nelken Auf Orange
1916Winter landscape
Hausbau II
1908Emmental landscape with grazing animals
1930Dampfschiff auf Thunersee
1931Thunersee mit Stockhornkette
1924Winterlandschaft
1910Still Life with Carnations
1925Capolago
1910Blumengarten
1936Lady With Flowers - Anna Amiet With Flowers
1923Blumenstilleben
1959Selbstbildnis im Atelier
1920Frau im Garten
1911Föhnstimmung (Zürichsee)
1943Blumenstillleben
1910Stans, Friedhof
1942Portrait of a Garden
1949Summer
1931Portrait of Emilie Amiet-Baer
1894Landscape near the River Aare
1925Mutter Mit Tochter
1913Blühende Bäume
1922Skispuren
1904Selbstportrait
1959Herbstimpression durchs Fenster
1953Selbstbildnis vor Garten
1921Greti
1907Self-portrait in Rose
1907Fruit Harvest (Female Figure with Basket)
1914Die Wahrheit
1913Bouquet of tulips
1960Sunset in a snowy landscape
1950Apfelernte
1919Trachtenmädchen
1925Winter auf der Oschwand
1908Still Life with Lemons
1910Herbstlandschaft - Herbst auf der Oschwand
1906Self Portrait with Wife
1930Baum in Winterlandschaft
Winterlandschaft
1928Brustbild einer Dame
1925Self-Portrait
1920The Violet Hat
1907Landscape Near Oschwand
View of the Garden
1950Moonlit Landscape
1904The Yellow Girls
1931Child at the Morning Toilette
1910Vase mit Zinnien
1944Female Nude with Flowers (The Truth)
1913Stillleben mit drei Vasen
1906Blütenzeit
1926Sophie
1894Snowy Landscape (Deep Winter)
1904Self-Portrait
1921Still Life with Fruit
1917Solothurn
1934Sommerlandschaft
1938Bank landscape
1928Thunersee mit Wellen
1932Spring Sun
1924Thunersee mit Niesen
1931Thunderstormy Sky
1932Garden with woodland
1933Mountain chain at sunset
In 1898 Cuno Amiet married Anna Luder von Hellsau. Her sister and Cuno's friend, Giacometti were witnesses to the marriage. The couple was childless, but had adopted a daughter Lydia Thalmann.