Artists Famous Artists from Switzerland

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List of the most popular artists from Switzerland, listed alphabetically with photos when available. For centuries artists have been among the world's most important people, helping chronicle history and keep us entertained with one of the earliest forms of entertainment. You might also be interested in famous Austrian artists and famous artists from Norway. Whether they're known for painting, sculpting, etching or drawing, the famous Swiss artists on this list have kept that tradition alive by creating renowned pieces of art that have been praised around the world. You can find useful information below about these notable Swiss artists, such as when they were born and where their place of birth was.

Examples include Alberto Giacometti and Jean Tinguely.

This list answers the questions, "Which famous artists are from Switzerland?" and "Who are the most well-known Swiss artists?"

For further information on these historic Swiss artists, click on their names. If you're a fine art lover use this list of celebrated Swiss artists to discover some new paintings that you will enjoy.

Alberto Giacometti is listed (or ranked) 1 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
The Couple, Tall Figure, III Alberto Giacometti was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draughtsman and printmaker. He was born in the canton Graubünden's southerly alpine valley Val Bregaglia, as the eldest of four children to ...more

Urs Graf is listed (or ranked) 2 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Urs Graf was a Swiss Renaissance goldsmith, painter and printmaker, as well as a mercenary soldier. He only produced two etchings, one of which dates from 1513 – the earliest known etching for ...more

Hermann Hesse is listed (or ranked) 3 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Lago Maggiore, Casa Bodmer, Piktors Verwandlungen Hermann Hesse was a German-born Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Glass Bead Game, each of which explores an individual's search ...more

Alice Bailly is listed (or ranked) 4 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Self-Portrait Alice Bailly was a radical Swiss painter, known for her interpretations on cubism, fauvism, her wool paintings, and her participation in the Dada movement. In 1906, Bailly had settled in Paris ...more

Daniel Spoerri is listed (or ranked) 5 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Kichka's Breakfast I Daniel Spoerri is a Swiss artist and writer born in Romania. Spoerri is best known for his "snare-pictures," a type of assemblage or object art, in which he captures a group of ...more

Méret Oppenheim is listed (or ranked) 6 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Object, Red Head, Blue Body Méret Elisabeth Oppenheim was a German-born Swiss Surrealist artist and photographer. Oppenheim was a member of the Surrealist movement of the 1920s along with André Breton, Luis ...more

Le Corbusier is listed (or ranked) 7 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Still Life, Abstract Composition, Still Life Filled with Space Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, who was better known as Le Corbusier, was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now called ...more

Max Bill is listed (or ranked) 8 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Endlose Treppe, Bildsäulen-Dreiergruppe, Combillation Max Bill was a Swiss architect, artist, painter, typeface designer, industrial designer and graphic designer.

Jean Tinguely is listed (or ranked) 9 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Stravinsky Fountain, Fragment from Homage to New York Jean Tinguely was a Swiss painter and sculptor. He is best known for his sculptural machines or kinetic art, in the Dada tradition; known officially as metamechanics. Tinguely's art satirized ...more

Robert Frank is listed (or ranked) 10 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Men of Air, New York, Ranch Market Robert Frank is an American photographer and documentary filmmaker. His most notable work, the 1958 book titled The Americans, earned Frank comparisons to a modern-day de Tocqueville for his ...more

Johannes Itten is listed (or ranked) 11 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Bewegungsstudie II, Bewegung II, Baumstudie (study) Johannes Itten was a Swiss expressionist painter, designer, teacher, writer and theorist associated with the Bauhaus school. Together with German-American painter Lyonel Feininger and German ...more

Melissa Auf der Maur is listed (or ranked) 12 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Melissa Gaboriau Auf der Maur is a Canadian musician, singer-songwriter, photographer and actress. Born and raised in Montréal, Québec, Auf der Maur began performing in 1993 after ...more

H. R. Giger is listed (or ranked) 13 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Penis Landscape Hans Rudolf "Ruedi" Giger was a Swiss surrealist painter, sculptor and set designer. He was part of the special effects team that won an Academy Award for Best Achievement in Visual ...more

Henry Fuseli is listed (or ranked) 14 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Odysseus in front of Scylla and Charybdis, Henry Fuseli in Conversation with Johann Jakob Bodmer, The Nightmare Henry Fuseli was a Swiss painter, draughtsman and writer on art who spent much of his life in Britain. Many of his works, such as The Nightmare deal with supernatural subject-matter. He painted ...more

Matthäus Merian is listed (or ranked) 15 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Matthäus Merian der Ältere was a Swiss-born engraver who worked in Frankfurt for most of his career, where he also ran a publishing house. He was a member of the patrician Basel Merian

Karl Bodmer is listed (or ranked) 16 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Indians Hunting the Bison [State 1], Dacota Woman and Assiniboin Girl, Hunting of the Grizzly Bear Johann Carl Bodmer was a printmaker, etcher, lithographer, zinc engraver, draftsman, painter, illustrator and hunter. Known as Karl Bodmer in literature and paintings, as a Swiss and French ...more

Roman Signer is listed (or ranked) 17 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Roman Signer Der Tisch, Kayak, Action Kurhaus Weissbad Roman Signer is principally a visual artist who works in sculpture, installations photography, and video.

Anton Graff is listed (or ranked) 18 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Anton Graff was an eminent Swiss portrait artist. Among his famous subjects were Friedrich Schiller, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Heinrich von Kleist, Frederick the Great, Friederike Sophie ...more

Arnold Böcklin is listed (or ranked) 19 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Isle of the Dead Arnold Böcklin was a Swiss symbolist painter.

Andreas Heumann is listed (or ranked) 20 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Andreas Heumann is a photographer and painter, born in Munich and brought up in Switzerland. On leaving school he began an apprenticeship in Bern to study block-making and printing. He stayed ...more

Félix Vallotton is listed (or ranked) 21 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Félix Edouard Vallotton was a Swiss/French painter and printmaker associated with Les Nabis. He was an important figure in the development of the modern woodcut.

Henry Suso is listed (or ranked) 22 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Henry Suso, O.P., was a German Dominican friar, who was a noted spiritual writer and mystic. He died in the Free Imperial City of Ulm on 25 January 1366. He was beatified by the Catholic Church ...more

Cuno Amiet is listed (or ranked) 23 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Cuno Amiet Sommerlandschaft I, Landschaft mit Bäumen und Hügeln, 1905 Cuno Amiet was a Swiss painter, illustrator, graphic artist and sculptor. As the first Swiss painter to give precedence to colour in composition, he was a pioneer of modern art in Switzerland.

Gunter Sachs is listed (or ranked) 24 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Fritz Gunter Sachs was a German photographer, author, industrialist, and latterly head of an institute that researched claims of astrology. As a young man he became a sportsman, then gained ...more

Christian Marclay is listed (or ranked) 25 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Video Quartet Christian Ernest Marclay is a Swiss and American visual artist and composer. Marclay's work explores connections between sound, noise, photography, video, and film. A pioneer of using gramophone ...more

Gunta Stölzl is listed (or ranked) 26 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Gunta Stölzl was a German textile artist who played a fundamental role in the development of the Bauhaus school’s weaving workshop. As the Bauhaus’s only female master she created enormous ...more

Adolf Dietrich is listed (or ranked) 27 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Adolf Dietrich was a Swiss labourer and, as one of the most renowned naïve artists, one of the leading Swiss painters of the 20th century.

Francesco Borromini is listed (or ranked) 28 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Francesco Borromini, byname of Francesco Castelli, was an Italian architect born in today's Ticino who, with his contemporaries Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Pietro da Cortona, was a leading figure ...more

Georg Gerster is listed (or ranked) 29 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
George Gerster is a Swiss journalist and a pioneer aerial photographer. Born in Winterthur, in 1950 Gerster earned a doctorate at the University of Zurich in Germanistik. Through 1956 he worked ...more

Wolfgang Weingart is listed (or ranked) 30 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Wolfgang Weingart is an internationally known graphic designer and typographer. His work is categorized as Swiss typography and he is credited as "the father" of New Wave or Swiss Punk

Sophie Taeuber-Arp is listed (or ranked) 31 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Sophie Taeuber-Arp Dada Head Sophie Taeuber-Arp was a Swiss artist, painter, sculptor, and dancer. She is considered one of the most important artists of geometric abstraction of the 20th century.

Marianne von Werefkin is listed (or ranked) 32 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Marianne von Werefkin, born Marianna Wladimirowna Werewkina, was a Russian-Swiss Expressionist painter.

Jean-Étienne Liotard is listed (or ranked) 33 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Self-Portrait, The Chocolate Girl, The Breakfast Jean-Étienne Liotard was a Swiss-French painter, art connoisseur and dealer.

John Brack is listed (or ranked) 34 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
The Car, Collins St., 5 pm John Brack was an Australian painter, and a member of the Antipodeans group. According to one critic, Brack's early works captured the idiosyncrasies of their time "more powerfully and ...more

Gérard Ernest Schneider is listed (or ranked) 35 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Gérard Ernest Schneider Gérard Ernest Schneider was a Swiss painter. A major pioneer of Lyrical Abstraction, a gestural and personal form of abstraction, along with Hans Hartung and Pierre Soulages, ...more

Vincent Laforet is listed (or ranked) 36 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Sport in Action, 2005 World Press Photo Award for Spot News winning portfolio Vincent Laforet is a film director.

Helmar Lerski is listed (or ranked) 37 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Helmar Lerski was a photographer who laid some of the important foundations of modern photography. His works are on display in the USA, Germany, Israel and Switzerland. He focused mainly on ...more

Warja Honegger-Lavater is listed (or ranked) 38 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Warja Honegger-Lavater Warja Honegger-Lavater was born in Winterthur, Switzerland. She was a Swiss artist and illustrator noted primarily for working in the artist's books genre by creating accordion fold books that ...more

Martin Hürlimann is listed (or ranked) 39 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Martin Hürlimann was a Swiss publisher, better known in the English speaking world as a photographer. Following successful completion, at Frauenfeld, of his school career, Hürlimann ...more

Pipilotti Rist is listed (or ranked) 40 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Stir Heart, Rinse Heart, Ever Is Over All Elisabeth Charlotte "Pipilotti" Rist, is a visual artist who works with video, film, and moving images which are often displayed as projections.

Max Haufler is listed (or ranked) 41 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Max Haufler was a Swiss actor and film director.

Walter Wegmüller is listed (or ranked) 42 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Walter Wegmüller Walter Wegmüller is a Swiss painter and musician. He is probably best known for the Krautrock album Tarot, which was released on the Cosmic Couriers label in 1973.

Alois Carigiet is listed (or ranked) 43 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Alois Carigiet was a Swiss graphic designer, painter, and illustrator. He may be known best for six children's picture books set in the Alps, A Bell for Ursli and its sequels, written by Selina ...more

Leiko Ikemura is listed (or ranked) 44 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Leiko Ikemura Leiko Ikemura is a Japanese-Swiss painter and sculptor.

Solomon Gessner is listed (or ranked) 45 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Solomon Gessner was a Swiss painter and poet. His writing suited the taste of his time, though by some more recent standards it is “insipidly sweet and monotonously melodious.” As a painter, he ...more

Henric Trenk is listed (or ranked) 46 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Henric Trenk was a Swiss-born Romanian painter and graphic artist, best known for his Romantic landscapes and his association with writer and amateur archaeologist Alexandru Odobescu.

Jacques Chessex is listed (or ranked) 47 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Jacques Chessex Jacques Chessex was a Swiss author and painter.

Rodolphe Töpffer is listed (or ranked) 48 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Rodolphe Töpffer was a Swiss teacher, author, painter, cartoonist, and caricaturist. He is best known for his illustrated books, which can be seen as the earliest European comics. ...more

Olaf Breuning is listed (or ranked) 49 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
Olaf Breuning Olaf Breuning is a Swiss-born artist who lives in New York.

John Armleder is listed (or ranked) 50 on the list Famous Artists from Switzerland
John Armleder Untitled John Armleder is a Swiss performance artist, painter, sculptor, critic, and curator. His work is based on his involvement with Fluxus in the 1960s and 1970s, when he created performance art ...more