Hans Fries

Hans Fries painted for a Catholic Switzerland that was about to disappear. Within a decade of his death the Reformation would sweep through the Swiss cities, whitewashing church walls and smashing altar images like the ones he spent his life making.

The son of a Fribourg baker, he trained with the Bern painter Heinrich Bichler and spent time in Basel around 1487 before coming home to hold the salaried post of city painter, with a seat on the council besides. The three panels here belong to a series from 1512 on the parents of the Virgin Mary, Joachim and Anne, their meeting at the Golden Gate of Jerusalem, the choosing of a lamb for sacrifice, and the birth of their daughter in a crowded bedchamber. Fries fills them with sharp everyday detail and an odd, inventive touch that still sets him apart among late Gothic painters.

Around 1510 he moved to Bern, where he lived out his last years. He was among the first Swiss painters to sign his work, which he began doing in 1501.