Theo Eble

The painter and graphic artist Theo Eble was one of the most important representatives of New Objectivity in the 1920s and Abstract Painting after the Second World War. Born in Basel in 1899, Eble studied in Italy, France and Ticino after training at the Gewerbeschule Basel and the Akademie der Künste in Berlin (as a master student of Karl Hofer).

Eble then taught at the Basel School of Arts and Crafts from 1931 to 1965. Together with artists such as Paul Camenisch and Max Sulzbachner, Eble co-founded the Swiss anti-fascist artists' association "Gruppe 33" in 1933. While expressionist and realistic-objective tendencies, albeit in dark tones, influenced Eble's work during his student days, he produced his first abstract-constructivist works from 1934 onwards. These mainly show floating constructions against a monochrome background. Glass paintings and murals followed from 1953.

In the 1960s, Eble returned to representationalism via the landscape motif. International exhibitions in France and the USA followed, as well as participation in documenta II in Kassel and the Venice Biennale in 1958. Eble died in Basel in 1974.