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Humanities and Social Sciences Library > Collections & Reading Rooms > Print Collection  Kurt Seligmann (American, born Switzerland, 1900-1962) Swiss-born Kurt Seligmann’s prints are inhabited by organic, fantastic and sometimes menacing forms, often bedecked with heraldry and wind-blown drapery, realized with a high degree of finish. His strange imagery, apparent in this untitled drypoint, drew upon many sources: youthful memories of carnivals in Basle, of puppets that frightened, rather than entertained him as a child, and the collections of the Basle museum, with rich holdings of medieval and Renaissance Swiss art, replete with devils, demons and martyrdoms. Swiss painter-printmaker-illustrators, like Urs Graf and Hans Holbein, may also have peaked his interest in the graphic arts, and a life-long fascination with magic, the occult and primitive folklore is manifested by his use of alchemical symbols and cabalistic signs. Seligmann left Switzerland for Paris in 1927 and eventually allied himself
with the Surrealists, though he only formally joined the movement in 1937.
He continued that association when he emigrated to New York in 1939, where
he not only painted, made prints and participated in Surrealist events, but
also designed sets and costumes for Hanya Holm and Balanchine, and was on
the faculty of Brooklyn College. Among the young American artists he taught
or mentored were Robert Motherwell and Nell Blaine. He and his wife lived
just down the block from The New York Public Library, in the Beaux Arts Studios
(now the Bryant Park studios) on the corner of 40th Street and Sixth Avenue. Photographic Services & Permissions Back
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