Alfonso Gregor Hüppi

Not a bad day, not a good day

Alfonso Gregor Hüppi was born in 1935 in Freiburg im Breisgau. His parents came from Central Switzerland. After spending a few years in South Germany, the family returned to their hometown of Sursee in Switzerland. Hüppi’s father had been a young member of the Swiss Guard in Rome and therefore gave his son an Italian first name.¹

From 1950 to 1954, Hüppi trained as a silversmith in Lucerne and worked as a journeyman. Between 1954 and 1958, he was employed as a hammer operator in a hammer mill. In the winter semester 1959/1960, Hüppi began studying sculpture at the Kunst- und Werkschule in Pforzheim, Germany. More or less around the same time, from 1960 to 1961, he studied calligraphy at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg (HFBK), where he was a student of Werner Bunz who for many years (1954–1991) was a professor at HFBK Hamburg. Bunz (1926–2009) was a German graphic artist, lettering artist, and calligrapher and played an important role in the development of modern German calligraphy. Later from 1961 to 1964, Hüppi himself worked as a lecturer (Dozent) for calligraphy and visual design at HFBK Hamburg. From 1964 to 1968, he was an assistant at the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden. ² From 1974 to 1999, he held a professorship in painting at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Hüppi has been a member of the Deutscher Künstlerbund since 1966 and a member of the Academy of Arts in Berlin since 1993. He lives and works in Baden-Baden, Berlin, and Namibia.

Hüppi is considered one of the important representatives of the post-war avant-garde and postmodernism. His work is described to range from spontaneous hand drawings to sculptural wall pieces and wooden objects, moving between the genres of image, relief, object, and installation. For me, it was very interesting to look at Alfonso Hüppi’s œuvre. He works with simple materials such as wood, cardboard, paper, and everyday objects, often combined with painting. His practice moves between painting and sculpture, and I find it fascinating how he can get his ideas from the simplest things of everyday life and transform them into artworks.

Because he uses elements from daily life in his work, looking at his pieces gives me the feeling of being in a normal human home and a familiar environment — not a bad day, not a good day, but a very normal everyday life. At the same time, his works feel very personal and unique. I like the way he approaches simplicity and form in art. In my opinion, there is sometimes a small sense of humor in his works, but at the same time, he shows seriousness through the form of the artwork and through the simplicity of his concepts and materials.