Lill Tschudi

Lill Tschudi (1911–2004) was a Swiss artist associated with the Grosvenor School of Modern Art.

Early life

Lill Tschudi was born at Schwanden, Glarus, Switzerland. As a girl she saw an exhibit of linocut prints by Austrian artist Norbertine Bresslern Roth, and decided that she also wanted to be a printmaker.

Career

Tschudi officially studied at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art from 1929 to 1930.^[1] From 1931 to 1933, she lived in Paris and studied with André Lhote, Gino Severini, and Fernand Léger. She returned to Switzerland in 1935, and lived mainly with her sister's family (her sister Ida Tschudi-Schümperlin was also an artist).^[2] Tschudi would produce over 300 linocuts in her career, exhibiting in London with Claude Flight and other printmakers.^[3] Her typical subjects included athletes, such as skiers and cyclists,^[4] transportation scenes, workers, and musicians. A wartime side project with her sister Ida involved printing illustrations for "Glarner Gemeindewappen," a booklet of the municipal coats-of-arms for the Canton of Glarus, in 1941 (this booklet is now considered rare and quite valuable).^[5] Her 1933 print "Ice Hockey" was used for the cover illustration of Margaret Timmers, Impressions of the 20th Century: Fine Art Prints from the V&A Collection (Victoria & Albert Museum Publications 2001).^[6]

Tschudi died in Switzerland in 2004, age 93. Her work was featured in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Metropolitan Museum of Art's joint 2008 exhibit, "British Prints from the Machine Age: Rhythms of Modern Life, 1914–1939."^[7] Prints by Grosvenor School artists, including Tschudi, proved popular at a 2012 auction in London.^[8] Her works were part of another exhibit in spring 2013, "The Cutting Edge of Modernity: An Exhibition of Grosvenor School Linocuts" at the Osborne Samuel Gallery in London.^[9]

References

1. Stephen Coppel, Linocuts of the Machine Age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor School (Scolar Press 1995).
2. "Growing Up with Lill Tschudi: An Interview with her Niece," Christie's (8 November 2012).
3. Gordon Samuel and Nicola Penny, The Cutting Edge of Modernity: Linocuts of the Grosvenor School (Lund Humphries 2002).
4. Mike O'Mahony, "Imaging Sports at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art," in Mike Huggins and Mike O'Mahony, eds. The Visual in Sport (Routledge 2013): 21.
5. "Lill Tschudi," Idbury Prints, http://www.idburyprints.com/artist/LILL__TSCHUDI_1496.htm
6. Margaret Timmers, Impressions of the 20th Century: Fine Art Prints from the V&A Collection (Victoria & Albert Museum Publications 2001).
7. Clifford S. Ackley, British Prints from the Machine Age: Rhythms of Modern Life, 1914–1939 (2008, exhibition catalog).
8. Colin Gleadell, "London Original Print Art Fair: Prints That Move Like Lightening," The Telegraph (17 April 2012).
9. Richard Moss, "The Cutting Edge of Modernity," Culture24 (10 April 2013).