Franz Gertsch
Franz Gertsch was born in Mörigen, Switzerland, in 1930. He passed away in 2022 in Riggisberg, Switzerland.
Franz Gertsch is numbered among the most significant contemporary artists in Switzerland. With his hyper-realistic painting and his woodcuts, which are unique both in technique and size, he has acquired an outstanding reputation well beyond Swiss borders. Between his international breakthrough at the documenta 5 in Kassel in 1972, and the presentation of his work at the Venice Biennale in 1999, a rich pictorial and graphic work has emerged, showing a very unique approach to reality. Reality to Franz Gertsch means not only a pictorial, but also a conceptual challenge. Although his work originates from photographs or slide projections, the pictures go on to follow their own inherent logic aiming at an absolute accord of all elements.
His action is close to a large part of the European painting tradition - from Jan van Eyck, Albrecht Dürer and Leonardo da Vinci to Caspar David Friedrich and Ferdinand Hodler - without betraying modernity.
Franz Gertsch’s woodcut works are considered absolutely unique. In an unprecedented precision of cutting and printing of monumental larger than life-size formats Gertsch pushes what is feasible in paper production to the limits and has opened a whole new dimension for this very traditional medium.
— Courtesy Museum Franz Gertsch
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