Hans Erni

(Swiss, 1909-2015)

Hans Erni was a Swiss graphic designer, painter, illustrator, engraver and sculptor. Born in Lucerne on February 21, 1909, Erni studied art at the Académie Julian in Paris and later in Berlin. He was strongly influenced by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque early in his career, and would be commissioned by the Lucerne Museum of Fine Arts to organize a Picasso retrospective. His early abstract affinity, however, shifted with his first public success, a huge mural titled Switzerland: Vacation Land of the People, commissioned for the 1939 National Exhibition in Zurich.

Erni is renowned for a prolific body of work, producing hundreds of works ranging from large-scale frescoes to illustrated postage stamps. He also designed theater costumes and sets, sculpture, and ceramics. Additionally, he created artwork for Swiss bank notes, which were never printed due to his perceived association with communism, although he was not a member of any political party. From 1940 to 1945, Erni was a soldier in the Swiss army, using his mural skills to create camouflage scenes.

Over the course of his career, Erni created designs for 90 postage stamps, 25 Olympic medals and hundreds of posters and murals for the Red Cross, the United Nations, the Olympic Committee, and many other organizations. He was awarded the UN Peace Medal in 1983. He later created a monumental ceramic mural titled Ta Panta Rei for the Palais des Nations in Geneva, which aimed to promote peace between people and nations. As one of Switzerland’s most famous and prolific artists, Erni lived to the age of 106, keeping up an intense work schedule even into his later years. In 2004, he was awarded honorary citizenship of the city of Lucerne, and in 2009 he received the Swiss Award for lifetime achievement. Visitors to the Hans Erni Museum in Lucerne can see around 300 of his artworks over a career spanning seven decades.