Hans Fahrni was still a child when his family emigrated to Germany. After his father’s suicide and his mother’s death, he was raised by his brother. From a young age, he developed a passion for the flute and chess. Having achieved a very high level in chess, he won a major tournament in Coburg in 1904 and became known for his “simultaneous, elegant, and fair games,” which allowed him to set a record in Munich in 1911, playing simultaneously against one hundred opponents.
In 1916, he was hospitalized for the first time, but this did not prevent him from completing his chess treatise Das Endspiel im Schach [The Endgame in Chess] in 1917. Back in Switzerland, he was admitted to the Waldau psychiatric hospital. Temporary improvements in his mental health allowed him to settle in Bern before being hospitalized again. He divided his time between writing chess articles for specialized magazines, participating in international tournaments, and producing drawings, which he began in 1921 at Waldau. He copied photographs of women cut from magazines and placed them in unusual, imaginative settings, creating a striking juxtaposition. His colored pencil drawings convey a unique atmosphere, blending provocative eroticism with fairy-tale dreaminess.