Hermann Scherer

Hermann Scherer, born 1893 in Rümmingen (D), worked as a sculptor, painter, draughtsman and graphic artist. As a co-founder of the Red-Blue Artists' Association, Scherer is one of the most important representatives of Expressionism in Switzerland. Especially the intensive friendship to Ernst Ludwig Kirchner has a profound influence on his life as well as his work.
After his initial apprenticeship as a stonemason, the young Scherer moved to Basel, followed by stays in Cologne and Koblenz. Back in Basel, he devoted himself to his first sculptural works in addition to his work as a sidekick of the sculptor Otto Roos. He created figure reliefs, individual figures and often also plaster busts of friends and acquaintances, which he was able to show publicly in the Kunsthalle Basel in 1920. On this occasion Scherer meets Ernst Ludwig Kirchner for the first time, whereupon a friendship between the two develops. At the same time Scherer's engagement with the medium of painting begins and he produces portraits, files and landscape depictions. Again and again he takes up themes such as the nude, the relationship between mother and child or man and woman. His works reflect his engagement with experienced fears and threats, alienation and security. Following Kirchner's invitation to Frauenkirch near Davos, Scherer entered an intensive creative phase. His friendship with Kirchner was broken during the first group exhibition of Red-Blue at Kunsthalle Basel so from then on the artist worked only with his colleagues Camenisch and Neuhaus in Mendrisiotto, Ticino. Exhibitions at both national and international level followed, and Scherer and the group Rot-Blau were honoured in an essay by Georg Schmidt as a chapter in the history of Basel art.
Scherer died very early, just 34 years old, of the consequences of a streptococcal infection in Basel. One year later, a large memorial exhibition is dedicated to his work at the Kunsthalle Basel. Scherer's works are now exhibited at the Aargauer Kunsthaus, the Basel Public Art Collection, the Chur Art Museum, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne and the County Museum of Art in Los Angeles.