Samuel Birmann

Samuel Birmann (11 August 1793 – 27 September 1847) was a Swiss landscape painter. He exhibited in Bern and Zurich between 1819 and 1821, and one of his works was shown at the Paris Salon of 1822. In 1844 he left part of his fortune to Basel’s public art collection, and his bequest later funded an acquisitions programme for contemporary Swiss art. In 1807 and 1808, he lived in Valangin, which is part of Romandy. He died on 27 September 1847, aged 54, in Basel, following a period of mental illness.

From Basel, Birmann took part in art exhibitions in Bern and Zurich between 1819 and 1821, and a work by him was shown at the Paris Salon of 1822. His work included panoramas, and in the 1820s the Bernese Oberland became a central subject of his work. He published the series Souvenirs de l’Oberland bernois and Souvenirs de la Vallée de Chamonix.

Birmann's work often focused on mountain landscapes and studies of trees, rock, water and moss. Many of his Alpine landscapes contain few or no figures, and his works are held by the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung Basel and the Kunsthistorische Sammlung in Liestal.