Niklaus Stoecklin

(Basel 1896 - 1982 Basel)

Born and raised in Basel, Niklaus Stoecklin briefly studies at the School of Applied Arts in Munich in 1914. Initially focusing on the art of poster design, he soon attracts the interest of the Winterthur-based collector Oskar Reinhart, who becomes his friend and patron. Stoecklin finds the majority of his motifs in his native Basel, where he realizes a series of works on public buildings. In 1925, he is the only Swiss artist to send work to the New Objectivity exhibition at Kunsthalle Mannheim. Yet this international breakthrough proves short-lived, as figurative art is eclipsed by the ascendancy of abstraction. It is not until the 1970s, when art historians rediscover the New Objectivity, that Stoecklin’s oeuvre receives sustained attention. He is now hailed as a cofounder of the movement and its leading Swiss exponent. His magical realism points up intimations of the inscrutability of life in ordinary objects.