Betha Sarasin
Born in Aarau, 3 February 1930 as Elsbeth (Betha/Beth) Baumberger.
1946-50 Education at the Basel School of Arts and Crafts.
10 years own studio as illustrator and graphic artist. Her early marriage to the radio journalist Peter Wyss brought her not only constant journeys but also multifarious contacts with avant-garde
people of every provenance. Her clients included Italian Lines, Danzas, LVZ Zurich, Onassis Olympic Airways, PTT Switzerland. She was a fashion reporter for various newspapers in Florence and
Rome.
In 1962, after her second marriage to architect Teff Sarasin, she began to exhibit her work and developed a continuous artistic activity.
Second residence in Venice since 1962.
In 1966 she realized the first Muranoglass panes for the church in Laufen.
Between 1970-1995, glass windows for four additional churches, and numerous works on the building followed in cooperation with Teff Sarasin.
1967 with C.G. Honegger, Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Basel, experiments with large-format paperchromatographies. With Hannes-Dirk Flury, photo art with refractions of light on
fine nets.
Since 1976 close cooperation with Horst Kordish at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solid State Mechanics, Freiburg i. B.
1976-1981 Three-dimensional realization of two-dimensional trompe l’oeil drawings.
1982 Instrumental sculpture with musician Bruno Spoerri. Performances in Linz at the Ars Electronica. Concerts in Zürich.
1983-2016 Cube spiral, sculpture of interlaced tetrahedra, numerical analyses according to the finite element method.
1985 Exhibition „Spirale, Wunder dieser Welt“ at the Museum für Gestaltung, Basel. Spiral disc, spiral music with Markus Ganz,
Premiere at the Museum für Gestaltung, Basel.
1986 Concert with Markus Ganz and the „Harald Härter Unit“ during the Basler Jazz-Woche at the „Atlantis“.
1978-88 „The Trip to the Lakes“, Betha Sarasin, Markus Ganz. Text German, English, Chinese. With accompanying music on CD.
1991-92 Catalogue „Teff Sarasin, Buildings and Design“, initiated by Beth Sarasin.
1995/96 Catalogue „Beth Sarasin A Heart of Glass“.
1996 „Una storia da cinema“.
2000 Château de Villersexel, joint multimedia performance with sculptural work by Betha and Teff Sarasin, music, dance.
Various exhibitions at, e.g. Haasner Gallery, Wiesbaden.
Continuous art activities in Venice and Basel.
Died in Basel, 24 July 2016.
