Anne Loch at Zentrum Paul Klee

Anne Loch withdrew from the art world at the height of her career — and created, in seclusion, a body of work comprising around 1,400 paintings. Now the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern is dedicating a major solo exhibition to her.

Anne Loch? Today, the name is almost forgotten. Yet in the 1980s she was considered one of the great hopes of the Cologne art scene. Alongside Rosemarie Trockel, Jenny Holzer and Cindy Sherman, the German artist (1946 – 2014) was represented by the renowned Galerie Monika Sprüth and showed her work in numerous exhibitions. An international career seemed only a matter of time.

But Anne Loch chose a different path. In 1988, she left Cologne, settled in the tranquil town of Thusis and largely withdrew from the art world. She rarely spoke about her reasons. Instead of offering explanations, she wrote in her diary: ​“So many explanations have already been given to me. But outside analysis there is something else: these are the moments of truth, and only I can feel them”. Anyone who believes Anne Loch turned her back on art, however, is mistaken. While she disappeared from public view, she continued working for decades with undiminished consistency. The result was an extensive body of work comprising around 1,400 paintings as well as numerous works on paper and photographic pieces. She guarded her paintings like precious treasure and parted with them only when she was in financial difficulty. Today, her estate is held in Bern and, for the first time, makes a comprehensive rediscovery of her work possible.

With the exhibition Anne Loch. Painting: So What?, the Zentrum Paul Klee presents around 80 paintings, drawings and photographs. They open up a new perspective on an artist who, throughout her life, consistently eluded both the art world and simple interpretations. Flowers, animals and landscapes define Anne Loch’s pictorial world. A bright red blossom appears to grow beyond the edge of the picture, a yellow flower glows against a deep-blue background, a flock of sheep stretches across several metres. A moth, the head of a raven or the interior of a peony also fill entire pictorial surfaces. The everyday suddenly appears strange. From a distance, the depictions seem familiar and clear. Only when one comes closer do they begin to dissolve. Colour, structure and the surface of the canvas come increasingly to the fore, transforming what seemed so familiar.

Anne Loch’s extensive photographic estate shows that these images were preceded by precise preparation. She first captured many of her subjects with the camera before transferring them to canvas. The actual pictorial idea thus emerged long before the first brushstroke. Yet Anne Loch was less interested in the representational than in the act of painting itself. ​“I simply paint strokes and their relationship to one another,” she noted.

Perhaps this is precisely where the lasting fascination of her work lies. Anne Loch sought neither spectacular motifs nor grand narratives. Her paintings do not explain the world. They invite viewers to look longer and to experience perception anew. Anyone who gives the exhibition time will continue to discover new facets — and it is precisely there that Anne Loch’s painting unfolds its particular power.

When: 18 July to 20 September 2026

Zentrum Paul Klee

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