Small Biography of Paulin Nuotclà

Today Paulin Nuotclà is 73 years old, and a Legend in the Lower Engadin especially,
all over Switzerland actually.

The became famous in the 1970ies for his pioneering Songs. He was the first “Swiss Rockstar” singing self-composed songs in Rätoromantsch.
Today, he is well known for his music career, and his Sgraffitos.

Quite a few know that he was also famous «back in the days” for being the first Swiss Illustrator creating comics in Rätoromantsch.

But very few people know that he has been his whole life also a painter.

in Summary, Paulin Nuotclà is an all-rounder-artist:
- a songwriter and singer.

- a conservator and restorer of old facades an houses,

- a Sgraffito Master (one of the two still living Masters)
- author and graphic artist of Comics, Illustrations and Posters

- an Art Teacher

- a Painter.

Born in 1951 in Ftan Baraigla,
his father Paul (Paulin’s first name derivates from his father, meaning, he is “the little Paul, the little version of his father”) was employed at the local train company. Not only was their first house the “train station of Ftan”, but his parents, especially his Father, showed little to no interest in the son’s love for the Arts and Crafts.
Paulin would draw from small on. But one local Artist, who was living not far away from his parents’ house, had failed in the career of an artist, and was relying on the funding of the village. Paulin recalls his father telling him as a young boy “look, that is how artists end up: ashamed and feed by the other villagers”.

Time passed by and Paulin had painted a few nice works, that also impressed people outside of the family bubble. With the external appraisal, Paulin remembers the shift in his father’s pride. He would from then on say “look, that’s what my son did !”.

After Studies at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Basel, Paulin was drawn to become an Art Teacher. But he recalls, his early political songs had already positioned him against the ruling government in Graubünden and a state-distributed job as an Art Teacher at some public school in the region… was completely out of sight. Paulin recalls the politicians of that time discrediting his work. And he smiles then, that his biggest satisfaction and answer to them, was receiving in the official “Graubündner Kulturpreis 2022” given always by the Government in Chur.

In the meantime, he would have spent some time in Italy exoding himself from Graubünden. In Italy he would paint aquarelles and work on his Comics. A financial patron of that time was paying him per Page delivered for his comics, and he would so finance his stay in Italy. Back in Switzerland, he finally became an Art Teacher in School and thrived in excelling in restoring old house facades and sgraffitos and creating his own Sgraffito Language. In a poetic way the characters of his Comics and of this house facades blend into each other. Certain animals and persons and symbols are recurrent. His Style in both is also irrefutably fusioning.