Sophie Taeuber-Arp - Unknown Pioneer of the Avant-Garde

Sophie Taeuber-Arp - Unknown Pioneer of the Avant-Garde

Painter, dancer, designer and architect - Swiss multi-hyphenate Sophie Taeuber-Arp was way before her time. An intimate portrait of a fascinating woman.


Everyone in Switzerland knows her face: She's been the face on the 50-Swiss franc note for almost 20 years. But still, the artist, dancer and designer Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889 - 1943) remains a relative unknown. As painter, architect, interior designer, furniture designer and dancer, her work ranges from abstract geometric oil paintings to Dada powder chests, from extremely functional desks to abstract dance. She first lived in Trogen in Appenzell, Switzerland, then in Munich, Zurich and Paris. Working in the discreetly background, in art as in life, she wasn't discovered by the art world until the 1960s, years after her early death. Today her work is in great demand in museums and galleries around the world, traveling from city to city.