Eugen Niederer

German-born Swiss Eugen Niederer was a draftsman, painter, and drawing teacher. He worked mainly under his artist’s name GEN. From 1900-03 he attended private art schools in München, and later he went to Basel and was employed at the Basel secondary school. Niederer mainly produced landscapes and figure paintings, many with mystical concepts, as well as flowers, fruits, and sport scenes. For his murals he mainly used encaustic painting.

The painting Torch Relay submitted by Niederer in 1936 may well be his Torch Runner. The work used to be in the Basel Sport Museum and was painted in oil on wood in the format 54.5 x 39 cm. The dating, however, is unclear because he took up a similar motif again in the 1950s.