Julius Bissier's first love was music; he played the cello and loved chamber music. The tiny delicate paintings he created, small incantations of color, are in his fond word "songs."

Bissier's fragile modes had rude beginnings. Son of a French-descended blacksmith whose forebears moved to the Black Forest from Toulouse, Bissier first explored landscape. Gold medals came his way, but after the Third Reich banned him from exhibiting in 1933, and a disastrous fire destroyed all his work, he changed his style. His work became almost Chinese in feeling. Working from 6 A.M. to 9 P.M.in his studio on the Swiss end of Lake Maggiore, he prepared thready-edged linen canvas and irregular pieces of batiste shirting, over which he laid on slick sizing so that the subsequent brushstrokes seemed to float above the surface. His colors went on in spontaneous strokes that evoked a sage's diary.

Written and compiled by Jean Ershler Schatz, artist and researcher from Laguna Woods, California.


Source:
Time Magazine, November 8, 1963

Julius Heinrich Bissier was a German painter born on the 3rd of December 1893, in Freiburg, Breisau. He married Elisabeth Hofschneider in 1922. The couple became known for a number of tapestry pieces.

Bissier studied in Freiburg and Karlsruhe until he was called upon for military duty. He exhibited his works in the 1920's, resulting in national acclaim. In the 1930's, he and his wife started a textile workshop, which quickly became one of the most prominent outlets for hand-woven pieces.

International acclaim came in the 1950's when Bissier exhibited at the Kestner-Gesellschaft in Hannover. He became a member of the academy of arts and continued exhibiting internationally.

He died on the 18th of June 1965, in Ascona.