Born in Speicher, Switzerland, the son of an Alpine farmer, Conrad Buff, by the age of forty, had an established reputation as an artist, primarily realistic paintings that expressed his love of the American Southwest.

He was apprenticed at age 14 to an uncle, a baker, and confectioner, and baking became a hobby with him for the rest of his life. He also learned the trade of lace designing and making, which ultimately influenced his pointellist painting style, and which was then a major trade in Switzerland. But he felt constrained with having to copy patterns, and in the early 1900s went to Munich, where he lived the heady life of a young man.

However, money ran out, and at age 19, he came to America an...