Background

Julius Bissier was born on December 3, 1893, in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany. He was the only child in a modest family of Heinrich Julius Bissier, a mechanic, and Crescentia Vögtle, coming from a big family of farmers.

Julius spent his childhood in Freiburg im Breisgau. Early in his childhood, he revealed a talent for music.

Bissier was a fourteen-year-old boy when his father died after the depression caused by arteriosclerosis.

Education

While in a high school of Freiburg im Breisgau, Julius Bissier as a boy having a musical talent received regular violin lessons. He finished high school in 1913.

Then, he chose art to pursue his education. To fulfill the goal, right after the graduation, he entered the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg where he briefly studied art.

A year later, Bissier enrolled at the State Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe. After a few months, the studies were interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War.

Later, Bissier continued his artistic training as an autodidact.

Career

Julius Bissier started his career from a military service at the Postal Control Office Freiburg where he came in 1915. During three years he spent there, he met a philosopher Martin Heidegger and a painter Hans Adolf Bühler. This time, the young man developed an interest in 15th-16th-century German painting and German mysticism. The passion influenced his canvases of the period.

The same effect had the meeting with the sinologist Ernst Grosse who crossed Bissier’s way in 1919. It was Grosse who introduced Bissier to the Far Eastern art. He became his first collector and close friend.

The next year, Julius Bissier had his first solo exhibition at the Kunstverein Freiburg. The show provided the artist with new acquaintances, the doctor Julius König and the psychiatrist Hans Prinzhorn, who enriched the artist with new knowledge of contemporary literature and art. To support the family, Julius Bissier worked as an artistic director of an earthenware factory and as a copyist on a furniture firm in 1922.

The debut solo show of Bissier was followed by multiple exhibitions around Germany during the second half of the decade, including the group ones, that contributed to the growth of his national recognition. It was this time when the artist joined the New Objectivity movement and created his first ink paintings which were figurative by the time.

In 1929, Bissier tried his hand as a mentor. The artist joined the teacher’s staff of the University of Freiburg where he taught nude and scientific painting. The University furnished Bissier with two ateliers. One of them was used for classes, and other for his painting activities.

Inspired by Constantin Brancusi's works he saw during the trip to Paris in 1930, Bissier made his ink paintings completely non-representative.

Four years later, two studios of the artist at the University of Freiburg were destroyed by fire with the majority of the works he had created. The misfortune was followed by the death of his son Uli. Suppressed by the growing Nazi pressure, Bissier left the University and withdrew from public life working at home for some time.

In 1939, Bissier and his wife Lisbeth moved to Hagnau am Bodensee. The family lived on the income from Lisbeth’s weaving workshop. Bissier was occupied with bookkeeping and applied his painting talent designing his spouse’s upholstery. He also experimented with ceramics. Once again, the artist isolated himself from the art world.

The consequences of World War II almost deprived Julius Bissier of the possibilities to exhibit his artworks. However, by 1947, the artist managed to bring colors back to his canvases producing woodcuts and colored monotypes.

In 1951, Bissier participated at the group exhibition at the Kunstverein Freiburg art association along with Max Bill and Georges Vantongerloo. During the decade, the artist pursued the experiments with materials and techniques. He tried to geometrize the forms of his oil paintings and by the middle 1950s, elaborated the egg-and-oil tempera miniatures. The artworks brought the artist the late fame.

The first important retrospective of Bissier’s art after the War took place at the Kestnergesellschaft (Kestner Society) in Hannover in 1958. The exhibition traveled around the country. The same year, the painter participated at the Venice Biennale for the first time. He received a lot of attention from the international public and critics.

The next year, Bissier demonstrated his artworks at the Documenta II in Kassel. In 1960, he made the second appearance at the Venice Biennale, this time with a one-man show. The visitors of the Gemeentemuseum (Municipal Museum) in The Hague as well as the art admires in Paris and London had a chance to see his canvases.

The following year, Julius Bissier and his wife relocated to Ronco sopra Ascona, Ticino, Switzerland. The artist brought his works to the São Paulo Bienniale and to the Lefebre Gallery in New York City. In addition to the 1964 Documenta in Kassel and the retrospective at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh the following year, the artistic geography of Julius Bissier during the last period of his life included Rio de Janeiro, Basel, Munich, Copenhagen, Rome, Campione and such American cities as Buffalo, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Utica and Los Angeles.

Achievements

• Julius Bissier was an accomplished artist who left an important mark in the history of New Objectivity and Art Informel.
  
  Almost forgotten by the art world at the beginning of his career, mostly because of his often isolations from the public, the artist obtained the international popularity at the middle 1950s. During this time, he received such prestigious awards as the Cornelius Prize of the City of Düsseldorf, the Kuntspreiz of the City of Berlin and the Grand Art Prize of North Rhine-Westphalia among others.
  
  Nowadays, the largest collection of Bissier’s artworks is held in Ronco sopra Ascona, Ticino, Switzerland where the artist spent the last period of his life. Some pieces of art can also be found in the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen (Art Collection of North Rhine-Westphalia) in Düsseldorf, the Hagnauer Museum in Hagnau am Bodensee and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Freiburg im Breisgau.
  
  In 2006, a painting by Julius Bissier, ‘Ascona’, was purchased at the Ketterer Kunst Munich Art Auction House for $41,224.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • S. Girolamo

  • Assisi 35, March

  • Limestone from the Swabian Alps (Burgfelden)

  • Untitled

  • Composition

  • Composition

  • 29.5.64

  • Self-portrait

  • 15.Febr.62

  • 12.XI.59

  • 3.9.56 II

  • Quince and apple - 28.12.41

  • Self-portrait

  • Conception in the Сosmos

  • Red Box with Glasses Case

  • Bunder in Zurich

  • As an Asian Monument

  • 11.5.50

  • 18.9.56

  • Composition (March 3, 60)

  • Composition (March 7, 62)

  • Dongo

  • 29.6.61 T

  • 14.X.58

  • Untitled

  • 23.10.49

  • Abstraction

  • Portrait of Lisbeth Bissier

Views

Quotations: "Some forms in nature or in its states of transition are torn, others spongy, still others powdery... Take such varied contrasts and project them onto a flat surface, whether in a 'composition' or as handwritten notes accidentally jotted down."

Membership

• 

  Berlin Academy of Arts , Germany

  1961

• 

  Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg , Germany

  1961

Interests

• Taoism, Zen

• Artists

  Constantin Brancusi

Connections

Julius Bissier married Elisabeth Hofschneider who worked as a weaver. The family produced two children, a girl Dorothée born in 1926, and a boy Uli, who came to the world two years later. Uli didn’t survive his youth and died at the age of six.

Father:

Heinrich Julius Bissier

Julius Bissier surrounded by his parents.

Mother:

Crescentia Vogtle

Spouse:

Elisabeth Hofschneider

Julius Bissier with his wife Lisbeth Hofschneider, 1922.

Daughter:

Dorothée Bissier

Julius Bissier with his son Uli and his daughter Dorothée in 1931.

Friend:

Werner Schmalenbach

Julius Bissier in company of Werner Schmalenbach in 1958.

Friend:

Ernst Grosse

Friend:

Willi Baumeister

Friend:

Oskar Schlemmer

Friend:

Mark Tobey

References

• Julius Bissier: The known and the unknown A book by Werner Schmalenbach contains 10 color and black and white illustrations by Bissier
  1966
• Julius Bissier A book by Jean-Luc Daval
  2001