The Most Famous

PAINTERS from Switzerland

This page contains a list of the greatest Swiss Painters. The pantheon dataset contains 2,023 Painters, 31 of which were born in Switzerland. This makes Switzerland the birth place of the 13th most number of Painters behind China, and Japan.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Swiss Painters of all time. This list of famous Swiss Painters is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Swiss Painters.

1. Paul Klee (1879 - 1940)

With an HPI of 75.60, Paul Klee is the most famous Swiss Painter. His biography has been translated into 72 different languages on wikipedia.

Paul Klee (German: [paʊ̯l ˈkleː]; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented with and eventually deeply explored color theory, writing about it extensively; his lectures Writings on Form and Design Theory (Schriften zur Form und Gestaltungslehre), published in English as the Paul Klee Notebooks, are held to be as important for modern art as Leonardo da Vinci's A Treatise on Painting was for the Renaissance. He and his colleague, Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, both taught at the Bauhaus school of art, design and architecture in Germany. His works reflect his dry humor and his sometimes childlike perspective, his personal moods and beliefs, and his musicality.

2. Arnold Böcklin (1827 - 1901)

With an HPI of 69.58, Arnold Böcklin is the 2nd most famous Swiss Painter. His biography has been translated into 48 different languages.

Arnold Böcklin (16 October 1827 – 16 January 1901) was a Swiss Symbolist painter. He is best known for his six versions of the Isle of the Dead, which inspired works by several late-Romantic composers.

3. Angelica Kauffman (1741 - 1807)

With an HPI of 67.26, Angelica Kauffman is the 3rd most famous Swiss Painter. Her biography has been translated into 46 different languages.

Maria Anna Angelika Kauffmann ( KOWF-mən; 30 October 1741 – 5 November 1807), usually known in English as Angelica Kauffman, was a Swiss Neoclassical painter who had a successful career in London and Rome. Remembered primarily as a history painter, Kauffmann was a skilled portraitist, landscape and decoration painter. She was, along with Mary Moser, one of two female painters among the founding members of the Royal Academy in London in 1768.

4. Johannes Itten (1888 - 1967)

With an HPI of 66.72, Johannes Itten is the 4th most famous Swiss Painter. His biography has been translated into 30 different languages.

Johannes Itten (11 November 1888 – 25 March 1967) was a Swiss expressionist painter, designer, teacher, writer and theorist associated with the Bauhaus (Staatliches Bauhaus) school. Together with German-American painter Lyonel Feininger and German sculptor Gerhard Marcks, under the direction of German architect Walter Gropius, Itten was part of the core of the Weimar Bauhaus.

5. Henry Fuseli (1741 - 1825)

With an HPI of 66.28, Henry Fuseli is the 5th most famous Swiss Painter. His biography has been translated into 40 different languages.

Henry Fuseli ( FEW-zə-lee, few-ZEL-ee; German: Johann Heinrich Füssli [ˈjoːhan ˈhaɪ̯nʁɪç ˈfyːsli]; 7 February 1741 – 17 April 1825) was a Swiss painter, draughtsman, and writer on art who spent much of his life in Britain. Many of his works depict supernatural experiences, such as The Nightmare. He painted works for John Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery and created his own "Milton Gallery". He held the posts of Professor of Painting and Keeper at the Royal Academy. His style had a considerable influence on many younger British artists, including William Blake.

6. H. R. Giger (1940 - 2014)

With an HPI of 65.54, H. R. Giger is the 6th most famous Swiss Painter. His biography has been translated into 38 different languages.

Hans Ruedi Giger ( GHEE-gər; German: [ˈɡiːɡər]; 5 February 1940 – 12 May 2014) was a Swiss artist best known for his airbrushed images that blended human physiques with machines, an art style known as "biomechanical". Giger later abandoned airbrush for pastels, markers and ink. He was part of the special effects team that won an Academy Award for the visual design of Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi horror film Alien, and was responsible for creating the titular Alien itself. His work is on permanent display at the H.R. Giger Museum in Gruyères, Switzerland. His style has been adapted to many forms of media, including album covers, furniture, tattoos and video games.

7. Ferdinand Hodler (1853 - 1918)

With an HPI of 65.00, Ferdinand Hodler is the 7th most famous Swiss Painter. His biography has been translated into 46 different languages.

Ferdinand Hodler (March 14, 1853 – May 19, 1918) was one of the best-known Swiss painters of the nineteenth century. His early works were portraits, landscapes, and genre paintings in a realistic style. Later, he adopted a personal form of symbolism which he called "parallelism".

8. Félix Vallotton (1865 - 1925)

With an HPI of 63.60, Félix Vallotton is the 8th most famous Swiss Painter. His biography has been translated into 41 different languages.

Félix Édouard Vallotton (French pronunciation: [feliks edwaʁ valɔtɔ̃]; December 28, 1865 – December 29, 1925) was a Swiss and French painter and printmaker associated with the group of artists known as Les Nabis. He was an important figure in the development of the modern woodcut. He painted portraits, landscapes, nudes, still lifes, and other subjects in an unemotional, realistic style. His earliest paintings were influenced by Holbein and Ingres. He developed a simpler style during his association with Les Nabis during the 1890s, and produced woodcuts which brought him international recognition. Characterized by broad masses of black and white with minimal detail, they include street scenes, bathers, portraits, and a series of ten interiors titled Intimités (Intimacies) that portray charged domestic encounters between men and women. He produced few prints after 1901, and concentrated instead on painting. His later paintings include highly finished portraits and nudes, and landscapes painted from memory. He was also active as a writer. He published art criticism during the 1890s, and his novel La Vie meurtrière (The Murderous Life) was published posthumously.

9. Albert Anker (1831 - 1910)

With an HPI of 61.78, Albert Anker is the 9th most famous Swiss Painter. His biography has been translated into 27 different languages.

Albrecht Samuel Anker (1 April 1831 – 16 July 1910) was a Swiss painter and illustrator who has been called the "national painter" of Switzerland because of his enduringly popular depictions of 19th-century Swiss social life.

10. Jean-Étienne Liotard (1702 - 1789)

With an HPI of 60.87, Jean-Étienne Liotard is the 10th most famous Swiss Painter. His biography has been translated into 29 different languages.

Jean-Étienne Liotard (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃n‿etjɛn ljɔtaʁ]; 22 December 1702 – 12 June 1789) was a Genevan painter, art connoisseur and dealer. He is best known for his detailed, strikingly naturalistic portraits in pastel, and for the works from his stay in Turkey. A Huguenot of French origin and citizen of the Republic of Geneva, he was born and died in Geneva, but spent most of his career in stays in the capitals of Europe, where his portraits were much in demand. He worked in Rome, Istanbul, Paris, Vienna, London and other cities.

People

Pantheon has 34 people classified as Swiss painters born between 1485 and 1986. Of these 34, 2 (5.88%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Swiss painters include Pipilotti Rist, and Milo Moiré. The most famous deceased Swiss painters include Paul Klee, Arnold Böcklin, and Angelica Kauffman. As of April 2024, 4 new Swiss painters have been added to Pantheon including Cuno Amiet, Urs Graf, and Pier Francesco Mola.