Background
Leo Leuppi was born on June 28, 1893, in Zurich. Leo Leuppi came from a peasant family with many children.
Leo Leuppi was born on June 28, 1893, in Zurich. Leo Leuppi came from a peasant family with many children.
From 1910 to 1914 Leo attended the class for graphic arts at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Zurich.
Leuppi participated in the radical Dada group, before evolving towards pure abstraction and what would become Art Concrete. By the late twenties he had already begun to assert himself as the leading avant-garde artist in Switzerland along with Max Bill with whom he shared many ideas for the progression of modern art.
In 1937 Leuppi founded the Die Allianz, an association of Swiss avant-garde artists, and in 1940 co-published the associated radical journal Almanach Neuer Kunst in der Schweiz. Aswell as exhibiting regularly in Switzerland and Germany, Leuppi retained his association with the Paris avant-garde and in 1952 and 1954 held major one man shows at the prestigious Galerie Denise René, which represented the elite of the Parisian abstract painters including Poliakoff, Hartung, Deyrolle and Schneider.
From 1959 to 1960 Leuppi taught experimental design in the Fashion Department at the School of Applied Arts in Zurich. In 1963 he gave up his studio on Mühlebachstrasse in Zurich and moved to Krankenheim Bombach, Höngg. He died on August 24, 1972 in Zurich.
Leuppi was one of the most important pioneers of modern art in Switzerland. His ability to present Die Allianz, in which representatives of opposing art movements such as constructivism, concrete art and surrealism merged, was also reflected in his own work: combining the undogmatic style of constructive principles with surrealistic moments.
Leuppi is also well known for his public artworks such as the iron sculpture on the façade of the Migros building in Thun (1955), the wall mosaic at Schulhaus Kolbenacker in Zürich (1955–57).
Leuppi established an international reputation exhibiting extensively and participating in numerous major group shows worldwide, most notably: 1938, Neue Kunst in der Schweiz, Kunsthalle Basel; 1942, Allianz, Kunsthaus Zurich; 1944, Konkrete Kunst, (organised by Max Bill), Kunsthalle Basel; 1947, Arte Astratta e Concreta, Palazzo Reale, Milan; 1951, Brooklyn Museum, New York; Sao Paulo Biennale; 1953, Smithsonian Institute, Washington; 1958, Venice Biennale; and retrospectively: 1977, Aspects Historiques du Constructivisme et de L’Art Concret, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; 1992, De Bonnard à Baselitz, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.
The artist is represented in several museums of modern art.
Composition
Studie zu Nordsee
Wachstum II
Familial I
Untitled
London
Untitled
Composition with Guitar
Untitled
Composition
Series
Muschel-Composition
Composition
Variation IX
Komposition
Sea Picture
Blancheur diaphane
Untitled
Exotischer Teppich
Abstraktes Stillleben mit Figur und Früchteschale
Composition
Transformation
Stilleben mit Guitarre
Beflügelt
Untitled
Tiere aus Ur, Meudon
ent-wickelnd
Muschel-Vögel
Bünishof (Herrliberg)
Blatt Blume
Spiel und Gesetz II
Tricomplex
Komposition
Nächtlich
