Cuno Amiet was born in Solothurn on 28 May 1868 and devoted his entire life to art. After finishing school he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and continued his training with his friend Giovanni Giacometti at the Académie Julian in Paris. In 1892 he travelled to the village of Pont-Aven in Brittany. Inspired by Paul Gauguin, Paul Sérusier, Roderic O’Conor, Paul Cézanne and Vincent van Gogh he dropped tone-on-tone academic painting for Divisionism, using colour as his primary means of expression. Returning to Switzerland, in 1893 Amiet met Ferdinand Hodler. Together they shaped the rise of Jugendstil in Switzerland. In 1898 Amiet married publican’s daughter Anna Luder and they settled in Oschwand, a village in Upper Aargau in the Canton of Berne. They stayed there the rest of their long and happy lives. At the suggestion of Erich Heckel, in 1906 Amiet joined the group of expressionist painters known as Die Brücke. After the death of Ferdinand Hodler in 1918 Amiet became Switzerland’s leading painter and a figure of cultural focus far beyond just those who were interested in art. Oschwand, where he lived and worked, became a rendezvous for the national and international art scene. The fire in the Glastpalast in Munich in 1931 came as a heavy blow: 51 of his most important works were destroyed. Amiet was not discouraged, and tried to make up for the losses with new works. Cuno Amiet died in Oschwand in 1961 at the age of 93, leaving behind a versatile body of work.