Kurt Aepli

1945 Kurt Aepli was elected specialist subject teacher to the School of Arts in Zurich, which would remain under the direction of Johannes Itten until 1954. He taught goldsmiths, silversmiths, chasers, engravers, metal spinners, gemstone setters, designers and metal polishers. All student apprentices in the school district of Zurich from these professions learned their respective trade theory, gemology and rendering from him. Besides teaching compulsory trade curricula, Aepli also taught continuing education night classes at the School of Arts in Zurich, providing tradespersons with an opportunity to further their skills in silversmith techniques. Here too, the creative abilities of Kurt Aepli were greatly appreciated by students, leaving their mark on many of them. He retired from his thirty-five-year career as an educator at the School of Arts in Zurich in April 1980.

Kurt Aepli completed his education as a silversmith at the School of Applied Arts (today, the Berufschule für Gestaltung) in Zurich between 1934 and 1939. Due to the mobilization of the Swiss military during World War II, he went straight on to four years of active duty. In 1942 he took the position of head designer in the studio of Meinrad Burch-Korrodi, and before long he developed the signature style by which both the jewelry and particularly the ecclesiastical implements he designed can be recognized. He left his mark as a trailblazer of Christian sacral art in Switzerland during the second half of the 20th century, about the same time as the church builder and designer Fritz Metzger and the painter Ferdinand Gehr, both of whom he held in high esteem. It is hardly coincidental that Kurt Aepli’s creative output peaked during the period of expectation that was associated with the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican 1962 through 1965. There is little doubt that the economic boom following WWII had been good for the jewelry trade, because when Christoph Trudel took over the business from Meinrad Burch in 1967, Kurt Aepli was so soundly established that the creative freedom granted by Trudel Juwelier was practically without limit. Between 1946 and 1980, Kurt Aepli was a member of the Swiss Work Federation (Schweizerischer Werkbund, or SWB), an association dedicated to the debate of creative issues and the development of design. Like for so many successful creative minds of the thirties, the Zurich School of Concrete and Constructive Art made a profound impression. Artists like Johannes Itten, Max Bill and Richard P. Lohse, but also the Bauhaus were each of most apparent influence throughout Kurt Aepli’s entire career.

Kurt Aepli (born 14 May 1914 in Rapperswil, SG, Switzerland; died 22 December 2002 in Uznach, SG, Switzerland) was a Swiss silversmith, a designer of fine jewelry and implements, as well as a professional educator.