SIKART offers content on historical and contemporary artists in the fields of artworks, exhibitions, literature and awards. It includes over 17,000 entries on individuals and around 1900 detailed monographic encyclopaedia articles.
The multilingual editorial team continuously publishes new articles by numerous qualified authors according to scientific guidelines. Where historical artists are concerned, the focus is primarily on new research findings; in the case of contemporary artists, the entries reflect their reception in the art world.
All content provided by SIKART is available free of charge for personal and scientific use.
Selection criteria
To be included in the SIKART Lexicon on Art in Switzerland an artist must have demonstrated a continuous presence in art sector operations. This includes regular participation in exhibitions at professionally managed art venues, critique of his or her artistic activities in a range of publications and recognition in the form of awards. You will find the selection criteria in this PDF.
Please send us the invitation cards to your exhibitions and keep us up to date with details about publications and awards. Exhibition invitations are kept in the Swiss Art Archives, which are accessible to the public, and selected publications will be integrated into our library holdings. Once we have a sufficient record of artistic activity, we will send a questionnaire to establish basic data about the artist. When this questionnaire has been returned, the entry will be placed online. Please send your documents to the contact address below.
The SIKART editorial team does not conduct any research itself and is therefore dependent on your cooperation.
History of SIKART
In 1991, SIK-ISEA issued its first entirely computer-based publication, the Künstlerverzeichnis der Schweiz (KVS). This led to the two-volume Biografisches Lexikon der Schweizer Kunst (BLSK), which was published in 1998. This standard work contains over 12,000 short entries and approximately 1,100 detailed articles, each featuring one illustration of a work and indicating further reading. The BLSK served as the model for SIKART in terms of both concept and content. SIKART Lexicon on art in Switzerland (www.sikart.ch) went online in February 2006. In the following decade, the user interface was slightly adapted again and again with minor modifications. After extensive preliminary work on the data modelling of the entire online holdings of SIK-ISEA, the relaunch of SIKART Lexicon, which is part of the research portal, was in 2021.
Languages
Reflecting the territorial principle, the language of the entries depends on the linguistic region in which an artist lives or was active. This should be taken into account when posting searches in three languages (German, French and Italian). A continuously growing number of encyclopaedia articles are also translated into German, French, Italian and/or English. Navigation functions, «Help» texts and thesauri are in four languages (German, French, Italian and English).
Download
Links to the website www.sikart.ch or direct links to individual entries by artists in SIKART are explicitly desired and are already used in numerous online collections of museums or other art collections.
You may download the artists’ data in csv format (UTF-8 encoding / size: 6 MB). Other formats are available upon request: sikart@sik-isea.ch.
Contact Zurich
Patricia Bieder, MA, head of SIKART Lexicon on Art in Switzerland
Raphaela Reinmann, MA, scientific collaborator
Nurja Ritter, MA, scientific collaborator
SIK-ISEA
Redaktion SIKART
Zollikerstrasse 32
Postfach
CH-8032 Zurich
T +41 44 388 51 51
www.sikart.ch
sikart@sik-isea.ch
Contact Lausanne
Isaline Deléderray-Oguey, Dr. sc. hum. et soc., scientific collaborator
SIK-ISEA
Antenne romande
UNIL-Chamberonne, Anthropole
Bureaux 4160-4163
CH-1015 Lausanne
T +41 21 692 30 96
www.sikart.ch
isea@sik-isea.ch
Contact Lugano
Patricia Cavadini-Bielander, lic. phil., head of Ufficio di contatto per la Svizzera italiana
SIK-ISEA
Ufficio di contatto per la Svizzera italiana
c/o Museo d’arte della Svizzera italiana
Via Canova 10
CH-6900 Lugano
T +41 91 921 01 83
www.sikart.ch
documentazione@sik-isea.ch