Oscar Wiggli

Oscar Wiggli (9 March 1927 – 26 January 2016) was a Swiss sculptor and composer known for abstract forged-iron sculptures. He exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1980.

Biography Oscar Wiggli was born on 9 March 1927 in Olten. From 1946 to 1949, Wiggli trained as a mechanic. He received the Solothurn Art Prize in 1974.

Wiggli's early sculpture included female nudes in plaster, as well as portrait heads and animal figures in stone and bronze.

In 1987, Wiggli completed his first large-scale iron sculpture at an industrial forge. and were presented at exhibitions and festivals as well as on radio. In 2004, he gave a concert at Zurich’s Hochschule für Musik at the invitation of the International Society for Contemporary Music. Between 1981 and 2007, he released around a dozen CDs of his compositions.

Collections Wiggli’s work is held in Swiss public collections including the Aargauer Kunsthaus, Kunstmuseum Bern, Kunstmuseum Olten, Kunstmuseum Solothurn, Kunstmuseum Winterthur and Kunsthaus Zürich.

Exhibitions Wiggli began exhibiting in Switzerland and internationally in 1956. His work was shown at the Städtische Kunstgalerie in Bochum in 1968, the Kunsthalle Bern in 1972, Kunstmuseum Winterthur and Kunstmuseum Solothurn in 1977, and the Venice Biennale in 1980. Other exhibitions included the Musée d’art et d’histoire in Fribourg in 1990 and Kunstmuseum Bochum in 1994.

To mark Wiggli’s 80th birthday in 2007, the Kunstmuseum Bern and the Zentrum Paul Klee jointly presented his work in the exhibition Oscar Wiggli: Body – Space – Sound. The exhibition surveyed his sculpture, drawings, photography, film and electroacoustic music.

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