Gottfried Locher
Swiss, 1735-1795
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Gottfried Locher was a Swiss draughtsman, etcher, painter and fresco artist of Swabian origin. Locher, who is sometimes classified among the Swiss minor masters, is considered to be the most important artist in French-speaking Switzerland at the transition from Rococo to Classicism, with his wide-ranging work.
Gottfried Locher was born in Mengen in 1735, the son of the local painter Wunibald Locher. His first artistic training was provided by his father, who had a modest reputation. Johann Georg Vollmar and Franz Anton Rebsamen are also possible teachers in Swabia. In 1755, Gottfried Locher fled from conscription into the military to Freiburg i. Üe., where he was able to establish himself permanently after his admission to the local citizenship in 1759.
Gottfried Locher initially worked in the studio of his fellow countryman Franz Josef Sautter. He was accepted into the Fribourg St. Luke's Brotherhood in 1759. Until his death, he worked as a draftsman, etcher, portrait, altarpiece and church painter. He decorated churches, secular buildings and, as court painter to his excellencies, also Fribourg government buildings with frescoes. He painted the ceiling of the Fribourg Grand Council Hall in 1776 with the Chariot of the Republic.
In collaboration with Christian von Mechel, he is considered the inventor and pioneer of Swiss costume depictions. His watercolor etchings Les trois Graces and Les trois Bachus were a great success in 1775. In 1774, he drew the templates for Mechel's copperplate engravings of the Swiss naturopath Michael Schüppach, his wife Marie Flückinger and the Langnau hospital complex. Johann Kaspar Lavater adopted the portrait of Michael Schüppach in his Physiognomic Fragments. Despite his outstanding achievements as a portrait painter, Locher was not part of Lavater's inner circle of artists.
Gottfried Locher died in Fribourg in 1795. He had 17 children with his wife Marie-Françoise Rotzer. Their sons François (1765–1799) and Jean-Emmanuel (1769–1840) also became painters after training and working in their father's studio.