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Lill Tschudi (1911-2004)

A Swiss painter and linocut artist, Tschudi’s interest in the linocut was cultivated through her interest in the work of Norbertine Bresslern-Roth. She studied with Claude Flight at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art, in London, from 1920-30, and also studied in Paris with Andre Lhote, Gino Severini and Fernand Leger. Apart from her studies, Tschudi has spent all her life in Switzerland although many of her prints were shown in the exhibitions organized by Claude Flight.

Prints of strongly typical Grosvenor School subjects include: Fixing the Lines (1932), Ice Hockey, Sticking up Posters (both 1933), and London Buses (1935), but she also created others depicting Swiss scenes: Swiss Parliament (c1935) and the black and white Knaben mit Skis (c1935). She was fascinated by sport, with subjects like the performances of circus entertainers, gymnasts and runners. Many of Tschudi's sporting prints reference her Swiss homeland, examples include the winter sports of sledging, skiing and ski jumping, or cyclists competing in the Tour de Suisse race.

Tschudi matured in her artwork very quickly. Before age twenty-one, she made Fixing the Wires, 1932. In the two years following her time with the Grosvenor School she made twenty-five linocuts, and so impressed Flight with her technical abilities that he reproduced Fixing the Wires in his 1934 textbook: The Art and Craft of Linocutting and Printing.

Linocut is Tschudi's preferred medium and represents the majority of her output during the 1930's. Sixty-five prints were completed between 1930 and 1939, most of which were first exhibited in London.

Tschudi received much more attention in England than in her native Switzerland through her prodigious period of the 1930’s. However, in 1986, she received official recognition when she was awarded the national print prize for lifelong achievement in the linocut medium. Lill Tschudi died in 2004.

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