Early Life and Artistic Training

Born in Rorschach, Switzerland, in 1907, John Sennhauser spent his formative years being raised in Italy. This early exposure to the landscapes and traditions of Europe provided a foundation that would follow him across the ocean. He sought formal instruction at the Royal Academy in Venice, where he spent two years honing his technical skills. These years in Italy shaped his eye for form and structure before he eventually made the decision to seek new opportunities in a different land.

In 1928, Sennhauser immigrated to the United States, arriving in a country that offered a different kind of professional path. Before fully committing to the life of a painter, he found steady work as an architectural draftsman. This period of drafting required a precise understanding of line and space, a discipline that would later inform his approach to composition. It was a time of practical labor that bridged the gap between his European studies and his future artistic pursuits.

His formal education continued in New York, where he enrolled at the Cooper Union. From 1930 to 1933, he dedicated himself to his studies there, refining the skills he had gathered from Venice and his work in drafting. This period of intense study helped solidify his technical capabilities as he prepared to move toward the more abstract explorations that would define his later career.

Teaching and the Guggenheim Years

As the 1930s drew to a close, Sennhauser found himself deeply embedded in the instructional life of New York. Between 1936 and 1942, he shared his knowledge through two different institutions, teaching at both the Leonardo da Vinci Art School and the Contemporary School of Art. During these years, his hands were occupied not only with the instruction of others but also with the private commission of murals. This period of teaching provided a steady rhythm to his life as he navigated the complexities of the city's burgeoning art scene.

A significant shift occurred in 1943 when he entered the orbit of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Working under Hilla Rebay, he took on the roles of lecturer and preparer at the Museum of Non-Objective Painting. This environment was one of intense philosophical energy, where he was immersed in the ideas surrounding non-objective art. He found himself surrounded by the spirit of works that sought a universal order, a concept that would begin to pull his own practice away from the urban street scenes of his earlier years. He remained with the foundation for two years before resigning in 1945.

Evolution of Style and Technique

The early years of his career were defined by a commitment to the tangible world. Throughout the 1930s, Sennhauser focused his attention on the bustling energy of urban street life, capturing the movement and character of the city through a realist lens. His drawings and paintings from this period demonstrated a keen facility for capturing the essence of the streets, a skill that earned him recognition even as his interests began to shift toward the more abstract realms of thought and form.

As the 1940s approached, a profound transformation took hold of his hand and eye. He moved decisively away from representational scenes, turning instead toward the structured language of geometric abstraction. This shift was not a solitary pursuit but part of a larger engagement with the modern spirit, as he became an active member of the American Abstract Artists and the Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors. His work during this era sought to express a sense of universal order, using lines, planes, and colors to create a rhythmic, intuitive balance between space and form.

The fluidity of his expression continued to evolve as the decades passed. In the early 1950s, he experimented with the expressive possibilities of watercolor and casein, leaning into the gestural tendencies of Abstract Expressionism. This period of experimentation eventually gave way to a return to the human figure. By 1961, his practice had transitioned once more, embracing a more fluid figurative style that departed from the rigid geometries of his middle years.

Key Works and Later Life

As his career progressed, Sennhauser’s hand moved toward a more profound exploration of abstraction. In 1944, he produced Black Lines No. 15, a work that demonstrated his growing interest in the tension between form and space. This period of experimentation continued into the following decade; by 1947, he had developed the Black Forms in Colorspace No. 13, a piece that utilized line and plane to achieve a striking energy. His compositions during these years sought to express a sense of universal order through the rhythmic movement of color and shape.

The years following his time at the Guggenheim saw a shift in his daily labors. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, he worked as a restorer, a role that required a meticulous understanding of the physical surface and material history of paintings. This technical expertise likely deepened his connection to the medium even as his own creative output evolved. In 1951, he produced Synchroformic No. 23, continuing his dialogue with the abstract language he had spent decades refining.

In his final years, the artist moved toward a more fluid figurative practice. He eventually settled in the United States, where he lived until his death in Escondido, California, United States, in 1978. His life remained a steady pursuit of the balance between the intuitive impulse of the brush and the disciplined composition of the draftsman.