streetartwalks

Harald Naegli aka DER SPRAYER VON ZÜRICH was born 1939 in Switzerland. Already in the late 1970s he used to decorate the walls of Zurich with his unique stick figures. He always used black spray paint and his figures provoked a heated controversy in Zürich and all over  Switzerland. He painted his graffiti anonymously at night, in places all over the city. The Swiss authorities issued an arrest warrenty for him, and as he was apprehended in 1979, he eluded the coming process and was sentenced in absentia to nine months in jail and a fine of CHF 206,000. In Germany, his work was more appreciated as art, and Naegeli remained there for the next few years and became acquainted with Joseph Beuys. 1984, Naegeli turned himself in to the Swiss police and subsequently served his jail sentence. Once released, he returned to Düsseldorf, were he still lives.