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 subsequently taught at the School of Applied Arts in Basel 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 Eble’s work during his student years work Expressionist and realistic-objective tendencies—albeit rendered in dark tones—his first abstract-constructivist works began to emerge in 1934. These primarily feature floating constructions against a monochromatic background. Starting in 1953, he also produced stained-glass works and murals.

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.