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Kurt Weber
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Kurt Weber (1938-2011)
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Kurt Oscar Weber was a Swiss-American painter and sculptor born in Zurich in 1938, with a studio presence in both Europe (Zurich, Switzerland) and North America (Emeryville, California) for over thirty years. His unique experience combined a European art education and German Expressionist influences (Max Beckmann, E.L. Kirchner, Émile Nolde, Egon Schiele). He also rubbed shoulders with some of the most important Abstract Expressionist painters of the 1950s (Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Philip Guston), was concurrent with the Colorfield artists of 1960s New York (Helen Frankenthaler, Ad Reinhardt, Barnett Newman) and was influenced by fellow Bay Area artists such as Richard Diebenkorn. Throughout his career, Weber enjoyed top-tier gallery representation and shows in the US (New York, San Francisco, Dallas), France (Paris), Switzerland (Basel, Zurich), Austria, and Germany.
Kurt Weber first attended the famous Kunstgewerbeschule (The School of Arts and Crafts) in Zurich, heavily influenced by a group of artists called the "Zurich Concretists." Then, Weber pursued formal training at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Montparnasse, Paris, under the influential Cubist artist and teacher, André Lhote. Soon after, his artistic exploration led him to Italy to study Renaissance frescoes and attend Oskar Kokoschka's School of Seeing in Salzburg, Austria.
In the vibrant milieu of Existentialist Paris, Weber connected with luminaries like Jean-Paul Sartre and formed a lasting friendship with Alberto Giacometti. Giacometti's counsel to maintain artistic independence deeply resonated with Weber. In 1964, guided by Giacometti, Weber ventured to New York, immersing himself in the burgeoning avant-garde scene. His fascination with Abstract Expressionism coexisted with regular trips to Mexico, where he studied Mayan and Aztec monuments, which also influenced his artistic vision.
Weber's work is primarily linked to German Expressionism, a pivotal art movement of the 20th century that emphasized the artist's inner feelings or ideas over replicating reality. It was often characterized by simplified shapes, bright colors, and gestural marks. The movement rejected conventional artistic norms in favor of subjective, emotive portrayals—a spirit clearly reflected in Weber's use of primitive, gestural, and spontaneous brushstrokes. Like the Expressionists, Weber sought to capture the essence of the human experience, embodying tensions within society through his depictions of human groups within meticulously composed structures. While German Expressionism was known for its bold use of color, Weber's art also reveals an integration of the movement's emphasis on emotional impact. His surfaces are rich and alive with painterly events and textures, echoing the expressive figuration of German Expressionism. The synthesis of diverse elements in his work, coupled with a controlled turbulency based on an emotionally charged vision, directly aligns with the movement's revolutionary spirit, including artists such as Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, and Gabriele Munter.
Weber's exploration of human conflicts and tensions within society, his commitment to subjective expression, and his integration of diverse influences firmly connect his oeuvre to the legacy of German Expressionism. In 2009, Kurt Weber exhibited in his hometown of Zurich for the first time. Tragically, in the autumn of 2011, he passed away in Basel, leaving behind a legacy that not only spanned continents and artistic influences but also resonated with the raw emotional power of German Expressionism.
“In my paintings, I want to express a personal mythology through sensations. To do that, I use a primitive, gestural, and spontaneous handwriting to achieve an immediate and tactile emotional impact. I am interested in the plasticity and architecture of a painting. Also, I am trying to integrate my eclectic knowledge of art, using it as an information element or reference in the context of the subject. My subjects are mostly human groups expressing the tensions and conflicts of sculpted masses with an even distribution of light in an overall stereometrically composed structure. My main concern is the synthesis of diverse elements; a controlled turbulency based on an emotionally charged vision. I want the surface of each painting to be rich and alive, painterly events and textures. I want to paint the dramatic, the restless, the tragic through an expressive figuration that is integrated into an abstract concept. I paint to defend myself, to better attack reality, to advance as much as possible in all directions, to find a formula and contradict it, to be as true as possible, to better understand what surrounds me, to exhaust myself in what I do, to make my war. I paint for the sensations I get by painting. In each painting, I become something else to possess more closely the sensations I have of reality.”
- KURT WEBER
Education
1963, Studio Stanley Hayter, Engraving and Lithography in Paris, France
1959, Andre Lhote at the Academy of Painting
1955-1958, School of Fine Arts, Zürich, Switzerland
We would like to thank Kurt Weber's longtime friend and artistic supporter, Katherine Cook, for introducing us to Weber's collection and story.
