Martin Disler

Martin Disler (1 March 1949 – 27 August 1996) was a Swiss painter, draughtsman and writer. He is regarded as a leading representative of the Neue Wilde movement, and his work has been associated with neo-expressionism. He gained international recognition in the early 1980s for large-scale expressive paintings and installations, and participated in Documenta 7 in 1982.

Biography Martin Disler was born on 1 March 1949 in Seewen, where his parents ran a plant nursery. He attended a boarding school in Stans from 1962 to 1968, when he was expelled for disciplinary reasons.

Work Disler is regarded as a leading representative of the Neue Wilde. In a group of watercolours from 1982, gestural marks form distorted faces that emerge from dark surroundings.

Disler’s work was characterized by an intensely physical creative process. His paintings were rapidly executed in large formats, with densely worked surfaces and powerful gestures.

Sculpture, previously secondary to his painting, drawing and printmaking, became increasingly important from 1985. In 2017, the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire in Geneva presented Direkt ins Herz, an exhibition of his prints, drawings, manuscripts and printing matrices. In 2019, the Bündner Kunstmuseum in Chur exhibited the 140-metre painting Die Umgebung der Liebe, its first public presentation since 1987. From 2020 to 2021, the Kirchner Museum Davos presented Theater des Überlebens. Martin Disler – die späten Jahre, focusing on the last ten years of his life. The exhibition included sculptures, paintings and prints, as well as previously unknown works from his estate.

Collections Disler’s work is held by institutions including the Kunsthalle Basel, the Kupferstichkabinett of the Kunstmuseum Basel, the Museum of Fine Arts Bern, the Cabinet des estampes and cantonal art collection in Geneva, the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire (Neuchâtel), the Kunsthaus Zürich and the Graphische Sammlung of ETH Zurich.