Otto Meyer-Amden (1885-1933)

Aliases: Otto Amden; Friedrich Otto Meyer-Amden

Professions: Painter; Lithographer

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  OTTO MEYER-AMDEN 1885-1933

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  OTTO MEYER-AMDEN 1885-1933

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  OTTO MEYER-AMDEN 1885-1933

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  c - OTTO MEYER-AMDEN 1885-1933

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Otto Meyer-Amden Biography

(b Berne, 20 Feb 1885; d Zurich, 15 Jan 1933). Swiss painter and draughtsman. After serving an apprenticeship as a lithographer and attending courses at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Zurich he moved to Stuttgart in 1907, where he became a pupil of Adolf Hölzel in 1909. He soon attracted a circle of friends, including Willi Baumeister, Johannes Itten and Oskar Schlemmer. In 1912 he moved to the mountain village of Amden above the Walensee, which was becoming a haven for artists and art enthusiasts. He again became the centre of a group of artists, and the letters he wrote from there to his half-brother Paul Meyer and to Schlemmer are important in charting his artistic and philosophical development. He had two main themes in his work: the usually naked figure of the young male, as in Picture of a Gardener (1911; Zurich, Ksthaus), and the community of youth, as in Preparation (c. 1930; Basle, Kstmus.). The figures are carefully delineated and psychologically isolated in their surroundings, often placed in a mysterious penumbral setting suggestive of dreams and recalling the symbolism of Ferdinand Hodler. In the later group works the dark but richly coloured compositions are ordered by a strict underlying geometry. In 1928 he took up a teaching appointment at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Zurich, which seemed to him the fulfilment of his life’s ambitions.

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