Helmut Federle

Helmut Federle is a Swiss painter.

Life Federle spent his childhood and youth in St. Margrethen close to St. Gallen in Switzerland. In 1959, he created his first small paintings with his initials HF as a motif.

From 1964, Federle studied at the School of Applied Art in Basel. In 1969 and 1971, he received a federal scholarship. In the following year, Federle travelled to Tunisia and the United States, where he studied for example the works of Mark Rothko and Agnes Martin. Together with his fellow artist and friend Martin Disler he exhibited in 1976 in the Kunstmuseum der Stadt Solothurn. Motifs at this time were mountains reduced to small triangles.

In 1979, Federle exhibited large-scaled canvases with geometric forms in the Kunsthalle Basel. The exhibition was mostly misunderstood. In 1979 and 1980, Federle lived in New York City where he was featured in the C-Space together with John M. Armleder, Olivier Mosset and Christoph Gossweiler. In 1981, the artist book New Suicide Grafic, Faces and other Pieces and in 1984 the artist book Arbeit der Neuen Ordnung (NSG II) were published.

From 1983 to 1984, Federle lived in Zürich and held a professorship in Reykjavík. Later he moved to Vienna where he started to work with Galerie Nächst St. Stephan. In the following years, Federle was widely featured in various museum shows. In 1997, he represented Switzerland at the XLVII. Biennale in Venice. From 1999 until 2007 he held a professorship at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and, in 2008, he received the Prix Aurelie Nemours., in 2016 the Ricola Prize.

'Scratching Away at the Surface' was the title of a recent exhibition in New York.

Federle lives and works in Vienna and in Camaiore, Italy.

Solo exhibitions

1979 Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland (cat.) 1985 Haags Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag, Netherlands (cat.) 1985 Städtische Galerie Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany; 1985 Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland; 1989 Museum of Grenoble, France (cat.) 1989 Kunstverein Hamburg, Germany (cat.) 1989 Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany; 1989 Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld, Germany; 1991 Wiener Secession, Vienna, Austria (cat.) 1992 Moderna Museet Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden (cat.) 1992 Kunsthalle Zürich, Switzerland (cat.) 1993 Museum Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany (cat.) 1993 Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany (cat.) 1995 Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany (cat.) 1995 Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris, France (cat.) 1997 Venice Biennale, Swiss Pavilion, Venice, Italy (cat.) 1998 IVAM Centre Julio González, Valencia, Spain (cat.) 1999 Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (cat.) 2002 Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, France (cat.) 2004 Nietzsche-Haus, Sils-Maria, Switzerland (cat.) 2005 Rudolf Steiner Archiv / Haus Duldeck, Dornach, Switzerland (cat.) 2009 Peter Blum Gallery, New York, NY 2010 Galerie Nächst St. Stephan, Vienna, Austria (cat.) 2012 Kunstmuseum Luzern, Lucerne, Switzerland (cat.) 2013-2014 Peter Blum Gallery, New York, NY (cat.) 2017 Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, Portugal 2019 Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland

Public collections

Albertina, Vienna, Austria Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA Espace de l'art concret, Mouans-Sartoux, France Haags Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag, The Netherlands Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Germany Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany Kunstmuseum Chur, Switzerland Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden Musée d'Art Moderne, St. Etienne, France Museum of Grenoble, Grenoble, France Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, France Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, Austria Museum of Modern Art, New York City, NY National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia Tate Modern, London, Great Britain Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe, Germany