Skip to profile content
Log In
All Artists

Xanti Schawinsky

Swiss

1904–1979

Works

Filters

Category
Select categories
Size
0 in 120 in
Reset
Orientation
Portrait Landscape Square
Clear Filters
  1. Skyline 3 by Xanti Schawinsky, Image 2.

    Xanti Schawinsky

    Skyline 3, mid 1950s

    Oil on Canvas

    20 cm x 139 cm

  2. STE-109 by Xanti Schawinsky, Image 1.

    Xanti Schawinsky

    STE-109, 1975

    Oil on Canvas

    46.50 x 36 cm

  3. STE-141 by Xanti Schawinsky, Image 1.

    Xanti Schawinsky

    STE-141, 1975

    Oil on Canvas

    36.5 x 46.5 cm

  4. Untitled by Xanti Schawinsky, Image 2.

    Xanti Schawinsky

    Untitled, 1954

    Oil on Canvas

    30.5 x 30.5 cm

  5. Untitled (New York City) by Xanti Schawinsky, Image 1.

    Xanti Schawinsky

    Untitled (New York City), 1953

    Black and coloured ink on Japanese paper

    32.5 x 23 cm

Xanti Schawinsky (1904–1979) was a Swiss-born artist of Polish-Jewish descent whose life and work bridged some of the most important movements of twentieth-century art. Trained at the Bauhaus in Weimar under masters such as Paul Klee and Oskar Schlemmer, he absorbed the school’s spirit of experimentation and unity of the arts. His early career in Germany and Italy combined theatre design, painting, and graphic work, including striking advertisements for companies such as Olivetti that reflected the modernist fascination with geometry, typography, and motion. Forced to emigrate by the rise of fascism, Schawinsky moved to the United States, where he taught at Black Mountain College and developed his concept of “Spectodrama,” an immersive form that merged light, sound, and movement. Later, in New York and Switzerland, he turned increasingly to painting, creating vibrant, abstract works that carried the energy and theatricality of his stage experiments onto the canvas. His career, spanning continents and disciplines, embodies the Bauhaus ideal of art as a synthesis of form, performance, and modern life.
Image of artist