Richard Paul Lohse

Opening February 2025, our gallery in Basel will present an exhibition of paintings and works on paper by the legendary Swiss concrete artist and graphic designer Richard Paul Lohse (1902 – 1988), spanning the 1940s until the 1980s.

A leading representative of the Zürcher Konkrete movement, alongside artists like Max Bill, Lohse was a radical thinker who combined a belief in the expressive power of color with the democratic potential of art during the early- and mid-20th Century. His work also made a significant impact on the development of graphic design. From the 1940s onwards, Lohse’s modular and serial paintings employed systematic systems which aimed to standardize pictorial means. Showcasing works from his most iconic series of paintings using grids of colored squares, versions of which were shown at Documenta Kassel in 1982, this exhibition precedes a major travelling European retrospective dedicated to the artist beginning at MASI Lugano in Switzerland, opening September 2025, and continuing to Haus Konstruktiv in Zurich and the Josef Albers Museum Quadrat in Bottrop, Germany, in 2026.

Photo credit: Richard Paul Lohse, 30 systematische Farbreihen mit roten Diagonalen, 1943–1970, Oil on canvas, 165 x 165 cm / 65 x 65 in © Richard Paul Lohse-Stiftung / 2024, ProLitteris, Zurich