MARTIN DISLER

Provenance:
- Galerie Elisabeth Kaufmann, Zurich.
- Purchased from the above by the present owner, since then private collection England.


Born in 1949 in Seewen, Solothurn, Martin Disler was one of the most important Swiss artists of the 1970s and 1980s. His strongly expressive art and his demonstratively lived existence granted the artist a cult status during his creative period.

Martin Disler was self-taught. Without risk of loss and in complete devotion to his art, in his work he confronts himself with strong emotions: love and eroticism, redemption, fear, power, self-forgetfulness, devotion and hope. The depiction of the state of his soul and the elementary emotional feelings of the human being are a recurring theme in his expressive painting. Due to repeated violations of the rules, Martin Disler left the Catholic boarding school in Stans prematurely and attended the Solothurn cantonal school for some time before he went to work as a trainee in a psychiatric clinic. In his first Solothurn studio, he already began to work intensively with painting at this time. His first small exhibitions in Munich, Olten and Solothurn enabled him to gain confidence as an artist, whereupon he applied for various scholarships. He later set up his studio in the Rote Fabrik in Zurich. In 1980, he presented his exhibition "Invasion through a false language" at the Basel Kunsthalle, which would make enable his breakthrough. And after a bold show in 1981 in Stuttgart, Martin Disler became one of the leading figures of neo-expressive painting. This was followed by further important international exhibitions in the 1980s in Cologne, New York, at documenta 7 in Kassel, in 1983 at the Basel Museum of Contemporary Art as well as at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and in Buenos Aires. In 1985 Martin Disler was supposed to represent Switzerland at the Biennale in Sao Paolo, but due to shipping difficulties this did not occur. In the 1980s he received the Bremen Art Prize, the Prize for Young Swiss Art of the Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft and the Art Prize of the Canton of Solothurn for his work. During his creative period, the movements of the "Neue Wilden", "Transavanguardia" and "Figuration Libre" were active, but Martin Disler prefers not to be categorized in those contexts.

At the beginning of the 1980s, Martin Disler’s early work was mostly characterised by large format canvases (see for ex. the larg painting above, lot 3782), clearly defined motifs and figures (for example the Lots 3783 and 3785). His palette consisted of richly contrasting, sometimes powerful and bright colours. There was an extraordinarily impressive dynamism to his work, not only thanks to the scale of the pictures, but especially thanks to the distinctive painting process. Using brush, hands, and fingers he would shape his figures using the whole of his body. Through this unbridled and direct representation of his feelings, such as pain, violence, or eroticism, he was able to produce a strong impact. On the other hand, he also worked with earth or pastel colours, applied very thinly over the wove paper or canvas, so that there was a lightness and transparency which came to the fore. His works, he said, were created in a process of continual intensification. In painterly terms Martin Disler’s later works are more exacting. Even if the artist never entirely gave up figuration, the figurative motifs are less and less recognisable (see for example Lot 3786). “I want to paint and draw everything wrong, the unexpected line, and the unbearably expected line; that way I am sure they are from me and not according to a formula”.

After a life of excess and restless work, the artist died in Zurich at the age of just 47 as the result of a stroke.