It was on the occasion of a retrospective exhibition by her daughter Vivian Suter in 2014 at the Kunsthalle Basel that Elisabeth Wild started showing her work internationally. Born in 1922 in Vienna to a Catholic mother and a Jewish father, the artist made several decisive journeys across the Atlantic in her lifetime: first at the age of sixteen, when she and her parents left Vienna for Buenos Aires to escape the Nazi threat. Next, in 1962 with her new family (husband August Wild and their daughter Vivian), she made the opposite journey to settle on Swiss soil and escape Perón’s dictatorship. Finally, in 1996, she left Basel and travelled to Lake Atitlán to move in with her daughter in Panajachel, Guatemala, where she spent the rest of her life.
She began her studies in painting in Vienna before they were interrupted by her first transatlantic journey. Throughout her life, she developed a rich body of work, including paintings, sculptures, and textile creations. But it was not until her late seventies that she began creating a large number of collages, a practice she continued in Guatemala until her death in 2020.
Amid the vegetation that surrounded her Central American studio, she produced one collage every day. Abstract, colourful, and mysterious, made from magazine cuttings, her compositions assemble images from the fields of fashion, art, and architecture. Elisabeth Wild spent almost twenty years creating what she called Fantasías, without giving them specific titles.
She began her studies in painting in Vienna before they were interrupted by her first transatlantic journey. Throughout her life, she developed a rich body of work, including paintings, sculptures, and textile creations. But it was not until her late seventies that she began creating a large number of collages, a practice she continued in Guatemala until her death in 2020.
Amid the vegetation that surrounded her Central American studio, she produced one collage every day. Abstract, colourful, and mysterious, made from magazine cuttings, her compositions assemble images from the fields of fashion, art, and architecture. Elisabeth Wild spent almost twenty years creating what she called Fantasías, without giving them specific titles.
