René Acht

René Acht (24 March 1920 – 3 May 1998) was a Swiss painter, graphic artist and sculptor. Trained in his native Basel, he became known for Informel works in the 1950s and was included in documenta II in Kassel and the 5th São Paulo Biennial in 1959. He moved away from Informel in the early 1960s and later made abstract-geometric paper cuts and folded works.

Biography Acht was born on 24 March 1920 in Basel. He trained at the Kunstgewerbeschule Basel from 1936 to 1940, studying painting, graphic art, sculpture and metalworking, and also worked in his father's gravestone business.

After moving to Geneva in 1945, Acht returned to Basel in 1948. In 1952, he began a teaching career that lasted around forty years, with appointments in Basel, Hamburg and Freiburg im Breisgau. During this period, his teaching income, grants and art sales enabled repeated stays in Paris and longer travels, including to Japan in 1974 and China in 1982.

For the years 1951 to 1955, Acht used the term "lyrisch-konkret" and described the phase with the words "non-representational", "Zen" and "Bissier". His 1951 meeting with Julius Heinrich Bissier led to a long friendship and deepened his interest in Zen Buddhism and East Asian philosophy.

Around 1965, Acht began combining constructive and abstract forms, with the house becoming a recurring symbol in his work. From November 2022 to February 2023, the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum presented the exhibition René Acht – Lyrisch-Konkret.