Biography

Dadi Wirz is known for painting, sculpture, printmaking and conceptual art. Born 1931 in Switzerland, he was the son of Swiss anthropologist Paul Wirz. During his early childhood he traveled and lived with his parents in Africa, the Far East and Latin America. From 1947 to 1950, he was a photography apprenticeship and student at the Art School in Basel. In 1951 and 1952, he did post graduate work in Paris at the Académie André Lhote and with S.W. Hayter's Atelier 17. At the end of 1952, he went with his father to Papua, New Guinea to assist him collecting tribal art on the Sepik River. Until 1954, he worked as an assistant plantation manager in Madang. Then he received an invitation to teach printmaking at the Museo de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro, and he immigrated to Brazil. In 1955, he received the news of his father's death in New Guinea and decided to return to the Sepik River, where he completed a large collection of tribal art during his eleven-month solo-expedition. From 1956 until 1965, he lived in Paris, Portugal, England and Morocco. From 1966 to 1979, he taught painting and printmaking at the Ohio State University, Rhode Island School of Design and Rice University in Houston Texas. From 1980 until 1996, Dadi Wirz taught printmaking at the Basel School of Design. From 1997, he lived near Basel, Switzerland, and also accepted visiting artist positions in the University of Texas, San Antonio, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, University of Illinois and Illinois State University.